


what is dead may never die (but rises again harder and stronger)

by hakyeonni



Series: little incubus [10]
Category: VIXX
Genre: 15th Century, 1910s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, Asexual Character, Character Turned Into Vampire, Gen, Historical Accuracy, Joseon, Languages and Linguistics, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 12:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 55,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11148714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: it's not like wonshik to get attached, but this mortal—hongbin, with his eyes that cut through lies and steadfast devotion to the country he loves so much—is different in every way.or, how wonshik realises that logic isn't always the answer.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> I knew, going into this, that it was probably going to end up longer than Hakyeon's backstory (since I had to combine 1910s Korea with the 1430s Joseon)—and I was right! (big surprise that hakyeonni can't be concise _again_ ) There's a glossary at the back with some notes if you need pictures or context for what I talk about in this fic.
> 
> Please note that the relationships tagged are platonic (since Wonshik is ace, there's no other way it would be lol)
> 
> Also, just in case you've wandered in from the tag and haven't read the rest of the series, you can most certainly read this instalment as a standalone piece! For context, Wonshik is a vampire, and Hakyeon is an incubus. This is the story of how Wonshik became a vampire—and how Hongbin's life was changed forever when he met the two of them...

_3rd March, 1919_  
The sun is threatening to rise, but still they wait.

It’s been forty-eight hours, or something close to it; Wonshik isn’t paying attention to time, isn’t really paying attention to anything except the ground beneath his feet, watching for movement. Hakyeon comes and goes—he prowls around looking for trouble, mostly—but Wonshik stays, doesn’t move from his spot on the ground beside the freshly heaped pile of earth. When the sun rises on the first day, he buries himself next to it; when he wakes, he digs himself free of the dirt with hope in his mouth, praying, wishing.

“Hyung…” Hakyeon is standing behind him, twisting his fingers. Wonshik can hear the way his palms slide together, how his skin is dry. It’s the sound of anxiety. “How long does this take? It’s going to rain soon.”

Wonshik hunches over a little more. “I don’t know.”

Hakyeon doesn’t say a word, just folds himself onto the ground next to him, but Wonshik knows him well enough to practically read his thoughts. He doesn’t think that this has worked. He thinks they’re holding a vigil for a corpse. He thinks that Wonshik made a rash decision in doing what he did, and Wonshik doesn’t even have the heart to argue because he’s thinking the same thing. He’d made a vow, long ago, never to turn another—and yet here they are, crouched around a grave, the body beneath lifeless and dead with Wonshik’s magic flowing through his veins.

“Two hours until dawn,” Hakyeon whispers, shuffling a little closer.

He’s gotten a lot better about not flinching away from Hakyeon—he is completely unapologetic with his love for physical affection—but right now it’s nearly too much to bear, and he shivers when Hakyeon lays his head on his shoulder. Small comforts, he thinks. If this has gone awry, if he has really murdered a friend, then at least he still has Hakyeon. The one constant.

The sky opens with no fanfare. One moment it is dry and the next they’re drenched, water dripping down the backs of their collars, trickling down their backs, chilling them to the core. Wonshik still doesn’t move—it’s a vampiric art to remain completely still, one he perfected long ago—but Hakyeon mewls, burrowing closer like Wonshik can shield him from it.

“Can’t you shift?” he sighs eventually, lifting his arm and tucking Hakyeon underneath his jacket. With his hair plastered to his head, his skin pale from the cold, he looks even more otherworldly than usual. “Into a tree or something? Or a tent?”

That earns him an elbow in the side, and he bites back his smile, turning away to look at the grave once more. He knows that’s not how Hakyeon’s shifting works—in the nearly three hundred years they’ve known each other, he’s seen Hakyeon change into every animal imaginable and some that aren’t—but it’s still amusing to wind him up because he bites so easily. “Hyung,” Hakyeon says, his voice reedy, “I don’t—”

A hand emerges from the dirt in front of them.

Wonshik’s on his feet instantly, fangs bared as he hunches over and hisses, feral and wild. It’s an instinctual reaction to what he’s suddenly feeling, feelings that are not his own but ones that are as real as the thrill that runs through him. It worked. It _worked_. Hakyeon is standing next to him, eyes wide, backing away slowly as the figure claws his way free of the dirt. With the rain streaming down around them, when he gets to his feet he looks like a hideous, mud-coloured monster, and Wonshik shivers.

Hongbin opens his eyes, glowing red at them through the darkness, and leaps for Wonshik’s throat.

 

 _15th November, 1917_  
“You’ve been summoned.”

Without even thinking, just moving on instinct, Wonshik’s fangs run out and he curls over, preparing to leap for the threat. It’s only until he’s taken a step closer, ready to pounce—all this having only taken a split second, thanks to vampiric reflexes—that he realises he knows that voice and huffs irritatedly. “Hakyeon, really?”

The lamp on Wonshik’s desk turns on to show Hakyeon, lounging in Wonshik’s nice leather chair, his feet up on Wonshik’s nice desk, holding a piece of paper in his hand and grinning gleefully. He’s wearing dress slacks and a white button up shirt, his hair pushed back from his forehead, and Wonshik takes the look on his face to mean trouble. “Sorry,” Hakyeon says, sounding not the least bit sorry at all. “I’m hiding.”

“You should be in the staff room,” Wonshik replies, taking his jacket off and hanging it on the coat rack behind the door. “Where all the high school teachers belong.”

At that, Hakyeon pouts. “And why don’t _I_ get an office to myself? I’m the most fluent—”

“—English teacher in the whole country, yes, I understand,” Wonshik finishes for him, folding his arms over his chest and glaring at Hakyeon. “But they don’t care. There’s seven of you and only one of me, the best—”

“—and only Middle Korean linguistics professor in the whole country,” Hakyeon blurts, glaring right back. “Who only teaches night classes. And who’s super pale. And who is fluent in Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, English, French, and, what was it, German? All that’s rather suspicious, don’t you think? And yet they still gave you an office instead of running for the hills.”

“Fuck off,” Wonshik sighs, flopping down in the seat opposite Hakyeon. This is an argument they’ve had many times before, and one they’ll probably have many times again, knowing Hakyeon. “It’s hardly an office. More like a broom cupboard.” He sniffs disdainfully. “A dusty, cobwebby broom cupboard.”

“Still better than having to share the staff room with all those mortals,” Hakyeon mumbles in return, slumping down in his seat so his chin rests on his chest, his hair flopping back over his forehead. He looks young, suddenly, and Wonshik raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know how insufferable they are, honestly. And I have to keep reminding myself to respond when they call me—” he wrinkles his nose for dramatic effect, “—Mitsuru.”

Wonshik has always kept his name close to his chest. It is part of his identity, part of who he is, and he lost enough of himself the night that he was changed—so he’s not giving the rest of it up, not ever. He responds to his Japanese name because he has to, but he doesn’t particularly relish it. They’re only a few months into this job, anyway, a few months into keeping their heads down and trying to be normal (“Why should we pretend to be normal?” Hakyeon had cried, to which Wonshik had responded icily, “Because right now, being abnormal is a dangerous thing.” Hakyeon hadn’t complained after that), and they’re both trying to adjust. Gallivanting around Europe and living like kings had been fun for a while, but he’d wanted to return home and he’s glad he did.

“Are you done bitching?” he asks dryly. “Can I have some peace to prepare for my next class, or will you bother me all night?”

Hakyeon pushes back off the desk and stands up, shifting on a jacket so he looks the role of a proper teacher. “Fine. I know when I’m not wanted. But I’ll see you at home. We have to discuss what we’re going to do about this.”

Before Wonshik can even ask what the fuck he’s on about, he marches right past him and out the door, slamming it behind him decisively. The only thing he leaves behind is the piece of paper, sitting on the desk, and warily Wonshik reaches for it. The one thing he wants to avoid right now is trouble, but the fat smirk on Hakyeon’s face when he’d left says that he won’t be getting his wish any time soon. The letter is addressed to him, Kim Wonshik, not his Japanese name, and that makes his eyes widen. In times like these, it’s dangerous to refer to someone by their Korean name, and yet there it is, written on the paper in a way he hasn’t seen in a while.

_Kim Wonshik,_   
_I apologise for taking so long to reach out to you. I wanted to let you get settled in here before disrupting you further. But watching you teach, and seeing the true passion you have for languages—and Korean in particular—has helped me decide. Please meet me this Friday night at midnight at Dongdaemun Church. I believe you can help me._

_Signed,_   
_Han Seongkwon_

His head spinning, Wonshik sits back in his chair, the letter clutched in his hand. He knows who Seongkwon is, although only vaguely; from memory he’s the pastor here at the university. While Wonshik doesn’t burst into flames upon crossing the threshold into a church—sometimes vampire literature gets it _so_ wrong it’s almost amusing—he doesn’t believe and so doesn’t spend much time, if any, there. Why the pastor is sending him a message, about his language skills of all things, is a complete mystery. It’s trouble. It’s exactly the kind of thing he came back to the country to _avoid_ , and now here they are, right in the thick of it again.

He folds the letter carefully and stashes it in his pocket before staring down at the paperwork on his desk. Preparing for the next few lessons—despite the fact he can only teach at night, and his specialty is linguistics, he surprisingly has more than one group of students wanting to learn—is his priority, especially since he hadn’t done it yesterday because he’d blown off lesson planning to patrol their territory. But every time he looks down at his charts of the alphabet his mind wanders back to the letter, the way his name had been written so boldly, the straight lines and curves of the language he loves so much—the language that’s been ripped away from him, been ripped away from them all.

//

He finds Hakyeon in the staff room after his classes, hunched over his assigned desk, pipe in hand and smoke wreathing him. All the other high school teachers have gone home, so he’s alone in there, and he jumps when Wonshik appears stealthily in front of him. “What—Wonshik hyung,” he blurts, eyes wide. “How many times do I have to tell you not to do that vampiric shit?”

“I can’t help it,” Wonshik lies with a grin, because he does enjoy spooking Hakyeon sometimes. He is completely fearless in nearly every other way, so to see him jump like this is satisfying, even though he knows it’s petty. “I’m going home now.”

Hakyeon straightens up at that. “Want company for the walk? I’m nearly done here, myself.” Wonshik shakes his head in reply, and Hakyeon narrows his eyes. “Oh. I know that look. You’re going to feed, aren’t you?”

“Need to distract myself from this,” Wonshik replies, pulling the letter out from his pocket. “But I’ll be home later, and we can talk about it then.”

“Okay. Be careful.” Hakyeon grimaces. “And have fun.”

They’ve known each other for so long, now—getting close to three hundred years, although they haven’t been together for all of it seeing as there was that one time they had a fight and split off for half a century—that perhaps they should understand each other more. But just as Wonshik will never understand how Hakyeon can live feeding through sex—an act that, at best, is completely uninteresting to him and at worst completely disgusting—Hakyeon will never understand how he can feed through drinking the blood of mortals. It’s not a life he chose for himself (does anyone?) but, he muses as he spills out into the cold, he makes do with what he has. There’s nothing else he can do.

The streets are quiet, these days, especially seeing as it’s nearly two am on a weeknight in late autumn. Not many people like to be caught out after dark, and not many people like to be caught out after dark in the cold. It’s not just the occupation, although that certainly doesn’t help. Rumours and whispers of attacks after dark is what keeps people inside, although it does nothing to deter Wonshik. If he’s not the thing in the dark doing the hunting, then whatever’s out there can’t really hurt him, so he has nothing to worry about. Sometimes he mourns the Joseon he used to know, where feeding was easier, mortals plentiful on the streets at night, but most of the time he simply refuses to address those thoughts. If living for as long as he has has taught him one thing it’s that there’s no point mourning the past; as powerful as immortals are, they cannot bend time, and must adhere to its whims just as mortals do. Besides, some hideous, secret part of him likes the challenge, likes when prey is difficult to find, likes how he has to resort to using his senses rather than letting mortals come to him. For the moment he is content to meander towards home, lost in his thoughts and enjoying the solitude of the night, trusting in himself to find a human.

He senses it from a few hundred meters away, down the street in front of him. The sound of a heartbeat, wet and thudding in his ears. The swish of feet on the fallen leaves. Clacking of shoes, but not high heels; a man, probably, and Wonshik lets his fangs slide out. Men have more blood to give. He will feed well tonight. Speeding up a little, he moves over so he’s walking in the shadows of the buildings, scanning the darkness in front of him. _There_. A man. He’s close enough to smell, now, and Wonshik practically salivates at the scent of his blood, floral and aromatic, so wet and hot and—fuck, he shouldn’t have let it get to this point. He’s _so_ hungry. He’s so hungry. This close, where he can see the man’s heart beating underneath his skin, he can barely control himself.

In the end he doesn’t even bother glamouring the man. Acting on instinct, his vision narrowed down to nothing but the man’s _pulse_ , thudding languidly in his head and swimming through his veins, he grabs the man by his throat and yanks him backwards. Tangling one hand in his hair to pull his head to the side, the other wrapping around his chest to pin his arms, he has a moment where time slows completely. The wind is whirling around them, the eye of the storm, and all Wonshik can see is the man’s artery, beating in time with his heart, underneath his skin. He’s so warm, Wonshik realises faintly. That same hideous part of him that he likes to deny, the monster that lives inside, is screaming at him to bite, to take, and he cannot stand it any longer.

“Sorry,” he offers quietly, a useless platitude, before sinking his fangs into the man’s neck.

The blood that flows over his tongue is hot and sweet, and almost instantly it soothes the ever-present hunger. He walks them backwards so they’re in the shadow of a building, the man’s feet kicking out uselessly as Wonshik continues to drink, but it’s useless; his grip is strong, unmoving, and even as he tears at Wonshik’s hands helplessly the wounds he makes close up as soon as they appear. Wonshik’s world fades away until there’s nothing but—but _this_ , hot flesh in his hands, wet blood on his tongue, the energy he’s getting from the man pouring into him in droves, so satisfying he nearly groans. It’s at moments like these that he is at his most primal, his most raw, his most _true_. He doesn’t like to admit it to himself because it is unbecoming, but he doesn’t want to deny it, not now, not when he sucks greedily at the man’s neck, his eyes glowing red in the darkness.

He lets the man go, feels him crumple to the ground at his feet, and tips his head back. Licking his lips to catch the last dregs of blood that remain there—and by god, it’s sweet; this man, accidental as he was, was a good choice—he stares at sky and reminds himself to breathe, taking the cold air into his dead lungs, deliberately doing this mortal action as he comes back to himself. When he finally looks down he has once again banished the monster to a small corner of his mind, and it’s with a tenderness that he did not possess before that he picks the man back up again. He leans him up against the wall, licks at the wound on his neck to close it, feels for a pulse. The man is still alive, albeit severely weakened, and for a moment Wonshik considers leaving him there—but then he remembers. He might not be worried about the other things lurking in the darkness, the things that make the mortals afraid to leave their homes, but he knows for a fact that if he leaves this man here tonight the chances of him surviving are very low. It’s with a huff that he fiddles in the man’s pockets to find his registration card, flipping it open and winging a silent thanks that he does not live too far away from here. It’s not that he’s afraid, not really, but he does want to get home because he knows Hakyeon does worry.

The man stirs when Wonshik picks him up and slings him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, his voice low and rumbly. “Demon,” he mutters under his breath in Japanese, and Wonshik snorts.

“Not really, but close enough,” he replies to the man, patting his legs comfortingly as he turns and heads towards the man’s home.

 

 _23rd June 1433_  
“What are you reading?”

It’s the first time she’s spoken and Wonshik damn near jumps out of his skin. The book goes flying out of his hands, landing at her feet, but she doesn’t even flinch. Wonshik can’t see her expression, but he’d be willing to bet there’s a sardonic smile on her lips. He’s seen it countless times before, and it’s insanely infuriating—not that she seems to care.

“It’s about demons,” he sniffs, leaning over and taking the book back.

He doesn’t know why they have to meet like this. He doesn’t know why he has to get dressed up in his finest hanbok and sit across from her for hours on end while their parents discuss arrangements next door. He doesn’t know why she doesn’t _talk_ to him, which is why he’s resorted to bringing books. If Wonshik wasn’t thirteen he’d have half a mind to storm out and go for a walk, but he’s not allowed outside unaccompanied, and none of the house servants will go with him without dobbing him in to his father. So he has to sit here across from her in the stifling heat, pretending to read his book while he sneaks glances at her out of the corner of his eye. He’d be lying if he wasn’t curious about her, even though he should know her better. They’ve been around each other for as long as he can remember.

“Demons?” When she looks up and meets his eyes, her eyebrow is raised, and Wonshik bristles automatically. “That seems a little… adult.”

He can’t even order her around like he does the servants, because she’s older, so he just sighs petulantly and hugs the book close to his chest. “I stole it from my father’s library when he wasn’t looking, so don’t you _dare_ tell on me, noona.”

At that, her grin gets even more devilish, if such a thing was possible, and she leans forward. The fabric of her hanbok swishes as she does, and Wonshik notes how the colours perfectly complement his own. Huh. “I won’t tell on you… if you teach me how to read it.”

“You don’t know how to read?” he blurts, taken aback.

“Of course I don’t.” Waving her hand in the air dismissively, she shrugs. “It’s not _ladylike_. I don’t know how to write, either.”

He doesn’t know why he should be shocked at this. His younger sister doesn’t know how to read, either, but he’d figured that’s because she is ten and stupid. She, sitting across from him, is different. She’s smart. He’s figured that out by watching her watch everyone else, taking everything in without saying a word; there is definitely intelligence lurking behind her pretty face. He then realises what he’s just thought and grits his teeth to stop from blushing. “What do you learn in lessons, then?”

“Needlework. Painting. Dull stuff. But will you teach me?”

Looking in to her eyes—they’re really round, he realises faintly—he finds himself saying, “Okay,” before he really knows what he’s doing, and then she’s scooting around to sit next to him.

When he reopens the book to the page he was previously on—one he was devouring with a voracity that surprised even him, since normally he does not care for myths and legends—he hears her inhale. To him, the characters look familiar, inviting; he’s been reading them for as long as he can remember, and he recognises them all (well, most of them). But to her? It must look intimidating, and he tilts the book towards her a little to help her see.

“What does it say?” she murmurs, reaching out to touch the page.

He really shouldn’t have stolen this book. He’d known that once he’d gone past the first page and found himself reading about a demon that specialised in ripping children’s throats out and eating their still-beating hearts—but he’d persevered, because while disgusting, it was also fascinating. The page he’s currently on isn’t as gory, but just as disturbing; what makes it all the more worse is there’s an illustration there, of a terrifying creature with pointed canines and blood-red eyes. “Um,” he starts, squinting at the page. “Blood demon? That’s the literal translation, anyway. I can’t read its name.” He points at the offending characters and sniffs. It’s not like he can ask his father for help, since he’ll be whipped if he’s caught with this.

“Blood demon? Yuck,” she replies, but her tone is intrigued. “Will you read it to me?”

He blinks at her for a moment before sighing inwardly. “Fine. But I’ll have to whisper. We’ll both get whipped if anyone overhears us.” Obediently, she scoots in a little closer, and together they bend over the book, practically hiding it from view. “Okay. The blood demon is a ghost that feeds on human blood…”

It’s distracting, trying to read with her _right there_. He tells himself it’s because she keeps interrupting to point out the few characters she knows, and not because their shoulders keep brushing. By the time their parents are done she’s starting to recognise a few more characters—simple ones, mainly—and they depart with him promising to bring an easier book next time. He doesn’t miss the wink she throws his way as she leaves, and he has to press a hand to his cheeks to try and quell the rising heat. She is infuriating, and it drives him mad.

 

 _15th November, 1917_  
Hakyeon is lying shirtless on the floor when Wonshik gets in, pipe in hand once more, the definite aura of a human wreathing him. He has fed, too, and Wonshik silently gives thanks. Hakyeon tends to get tetchy if he goes long without feeding, and Lord knows it’s harder for him to feed than it is for Wonshik. Back in Europe, people would practically throw themselves at Hakyeon’s feet, begging for his attention; he was treated like a King, and as his ‘courtesan’, Wonshik got his pick of the spoils, too. But now, with everything so strained and gloomy, it is getting harder and harder for them to survive. Wonshik’s natural skepticism had prepared him for this, but he can tell Hakyeon is struggling.

“Hey,” he says—in Korean, since they can finally speak in their mother tongue in the comfort of their own home. “No smoking in the house, remember? That shit smells awful.”

Hakyeon sits up right in time for Wonshik to pluck the pipe from his hand. “I know,” he replies dejectedly, watching as Wonshik tips the contents down the sink and runs the water to put them out. “But everyone else does it, so I have to as well. Gotta keep up our cover stories, yeah? Speaking of which, you’ve got blood on your mouth.” He points at Wonshik’s mouth, eyebrow raised with derision. “Hope no one saw you on the way home.”

“It’s two thirty,” Wonshik points out in return, taking off his jacket and hanging it up near the door before folding himself on the floor next to Hakyeon. “There’s no one _to_ see. You know, this one called me a demon, too.”

Hakyeon sighs dramatically as he lies back down with his head in Wonshik’s lap. Automatically, Wonshik begins to stroke his head the way he knows he likes it; after so many years of companionship, they both know how to help the other relax. He hadn’t liked the constant touching, at first, but he’d gotten used to it—and now he finds he even sort of likes it, not that he’d ever tell Hakyeon that. And others touching him still freaks him out. Hakyeon is the one person who has always refused to sit comfortably behind the barriers Wonshik erects to keep the outside world out; that is the one thing that he _can_ count on.

“Again? They need to come up with better insults.” One hand slides around the inside of Wonshik’s thigh, and he bares his teeth automatically—but Hakyeon slips down towards his knee, instead, and he relaxes. “I mean, no offence, but demons are _way_ scarier than you.”

Shuddering, Wonshik feels his fangs run out, the image of black eyes suddenly very present in his mind. “Yeah. I don’t really need the reminder, thanks.”

That had been the only downside of their time in Europe, which had been otherwise unmarred. They had travelled from place to place, Hakyeon sometimes appearing as himself and other times appearing as other people—he _loved_ to shift into a woman and make Wonshik play the part of his husband, for some sick reason—and had come across very few other immortals in that time. Wonshik kept a low profile, since vampires tend to be territorial and the last thing he wanted was to attract attention by getting into potentially fatal spats, and for the most part they’d been unbothered… until Germany. It had been there that a demon had come sniffing around, intrigued by the prospect of a vampire and an incubus travelling together (something that didn’t happen all that often since vampires are often ruthless and cold, which Wonshik is the first to admit). He’d wanted to have, to possess, to keep the two of them, and neither of them were really interested in that.

“Who knew demons explode when they die?” Hakyeon muses out loud, snapping Wonshik out of his trance.

Wonshik’s hand tightens in Hakyeon’s hair involuntarily, making him yelp. “I said I didn’t need the reminder,” he repeats, sternly, since Hakyeon hasn’t gotten the message. Wonshik has killed a lot of times in all his years—it’s horrible to say, but he has sort of gotten used to it at this point—but never has a kill haunted him quite like the demon’s death has. “Besides, there are more pertinent issues at hand. Like that letter.”

“The mysterious letter. Maybe he’s realised what you are and is trying to see the immolation spectacular, since mortals seem to think vampires are inherently flammable, especially in churches.”

Hakyeon is being his typical self about this, but Wonshik can’t help feeling like attending this meeting is a terrible idea. He’s still slightly paranoid about news of the demon’s death spreading, and he doesn’t particularly want to get staked. His paranoia might be overkill, as Hakyeon constantly reminds him, but it’s what’s kept him alive all these years so he tends to listen to his instincts. “Maybe,” he muses, twirling a strand of Hakyeon’s hair around his fingers. “Or maybe it’s the police, arresting us.”

“For what?” At that, Hakyeon sits up, spinning around to stare Wonshik in the face. “You speak Japanese in public,” he says, ticking off points on his fingers. “To everyone who matters, you’re known as Kanamoto Tatsuru. You’re an ordinary citizen who lives with his friend Hanabusa Mitsuru. You work at night because you have an eye condition that makes it nearly impossible to go out in the daylight. Trust me, the police have bigger problems to worry about than a linguistics professor teaching a class of twenty girls about a language they’re trying to kill off anyway.”

Wonshik grimaces. Hakyeon is right, as he so often is, and there’s really nothing he can say to rebut. “Fine,” he mutters, baring his fangs as Hakyeon cups his face but leaning into the touch anyway. “We’ll go. But if I get staked you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your days.”

“If I don’t do it first!” Hakyeon calls cheerfully as Wonshik stomps into the bedroom.

//

The moment the sun sets the next day Wonshik’s eyes snap open and he takes a deep breath in—something he has to remind himself to do, not something that comes naturally to him; not anymore. The room smells stale, and when he sits up and shakes himself free of the mountain of blankets that Hakyeon has dumped on him (Hakyeon had offered to steal a coffin for Wonshik sleep in, but he’d wrinkled his nose in disgust at that. In the end they’d settled for blacking out the windows entirely, with Hakyeon promising to swaddle Wonshik in blankets if he needed to leave in the day) he can hear people on the street outside, laughing and talking. Just the sound of it makes him salivate, phantom pains shooting through his gums. Even though he just fed the night before, even though he is relatively full, the hunger never truly leaves him; the monster is always lurking in the shadows, held back only by the measure of his self-control.

He gets up and gets dressed quickly. He has no idea where Hakyeon is, and doesn’t particularly care; he might still be at work, or out running errands, or feeding. He’d probably told Wonshik where he was going before he left, but just like most of the time when he’s woken from sleep he can’t remember a damned thing, so has only guesses. It’s not like it matters, anyway. He has to patrol their territory, a chore that’s as familiar as it is dull, and so it’s with a heavy heart that he slams shut the door of their little house behind him and spills out onto the street.

It’s early enough that there’s still a hint of blue in the sky to the west, and Wonshik squints at it suspiciously. He is safe, of course—as long as the sun is below the horizon, he’s fine—but he doesn’t really trust the twilight anymore. It’s been over four hundred years since the sun kissed his skin, and he wants to keep it that way. Turning away from those thoughts, because he knows they’ll just make him melancholy if he dwells on them for too long, he shoves his hands in his pockets and heads down the street. Mortals are everywhere, smiling and laughing in the dying light, slapping each other on the shoulders or linking arms or grinning at each other as way of greeting; he represses a shudder and hunches his shoulders. Even when he was alive like them he was decidedly solitary; he cannot relate to the simple camaraderie that seems to come easily to everyone but him. Nothing changed when he died.

His territory isn’t that big, all things considered; only around a square mile or so. He hadn’t let any of the other vampires know he was coming to town. Things don’t really work like that—or at least, they didn’t when he left, over a century ago—so he’d just sort of… turned up, figuring the other vampires would sense him and know where he patrolled. He’d expected fights, but he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of any other immortals in the time they’ve been back. That, in itself, is telling, but telling of what (beyond the general discontent that is stamped across the whole country) he can’t exactly tell. The route he takes is familiar and somewhat comforting, and he finds himself relaxing as he hops on the next tram heading downtown, grabbing onto a pole and relishing the wind on his face. _Simple pleasures,_ he tells himself, eyeing the moon hanging low in the sky.

He’s on his second loop, waiting for the next tram towards the center of the city, when he hears raised voices from behind him and turns on instinct. It’s not even altruism; it is pure self-preservation. People yelling around him usually ends in spilled blood, and he sort of wants to go _one_ day without having to let loose the monster within. But it’s not people yelling in horror because they’ve caught a glimpse of his red eyes (hard as he tries to keep them normal, he slips up sometimes; yet another excuse to avoid eye contact with everyone he meets). It’s a police officer, yelling at a man who looks to be around Wonshik’s age. They’re both standing with arms folded, mirrored scowls on their faces, and he finds himself intrigued even though he knows he probably shouldn’t be.

“It’s improper behaviour, to be reading that in public,” the officer is saying, jabbing at the book the man has clutched to his chest.

Wonshik squints at it, reading the title even though he’s far enough away that he shouldn’t even be able to catch a glimpse—or wouldn’t be able to, if he was mortal. _Springtime Poetry: A Collection_ , it reads, and he automatically raises an eyebrow. By the way the officer is carrying on he’d expected it to be something lewd, but no; the most offensive thing about this book is that the title is written in Korean, bold and embossed and completely unapologetic. “Actually, it’s my birthright,” the man argues back in Korean, and Wonshik can barely hide his grin.

The officer’s mouth drops open at that, and people around them actually back away slightly. Wonshik has no idea who this mortal is, but he loves the defiance, loves the way he’s staring down this police officer—who is taller and bulkier than him—with a mettle that he rarely sees. “Do you _want_ to get arrested?” the officer snarls.

“Of course I don’t, you fucking bastard,” the man mutters under his breath, in Korean. It’s low enough for the officer to hear, and low enough for Wonshik to hear, but everyone else just stares.

For a moment the air hangs still, pregnant with a thousand possibilities. Wonshik’s fangs slide out, slowly, and he doesn’t bother to retract them; this situation now has the chance to get very violent very suddenly, and he tenses. Why he’s compelled to leap in for this random (brave but idiotic) mortal, he’s not sure. He is perfectly aware that he needs to avoid trouble at all costs, but still feels somewhat protective. If Hakyeon was here he would be calling Wonshik soft. Hah. Maybe he is getting soft in his old age.

“You fucking—” the officer bellows, and swings his fist and punches the man square in the face.

The smell of blood hits Wonshik instantly, sharp and acrid, and he sniffs and clenches his fists. It’s easy to ignore in favour of concern for the man—his nose is dripping blood, and the punch had sent him sprawling back on the street, the book spilling from his hands. Wonshik watches as he touches a hand to his face wonderingly, staring at the crimson on his fingers in abject surprise. Wonshik tenses, anticipating—and has to grit his teeth not to hiss when the man springs to his feet and squares up to the officer, ready to throw a punch of his own.

“Oh my god! Officer! I am sooooooo sorry!” Everyone’s heads turn at the sound of that voice speaking in Japanese—high pitched and a little whiny—because, by now, everyone on the whole street is watching this altercation. Someone grabs the man and yanks him back several steps, wrapping their arms around his middle so he can’t throw the punch, and Wonshik raises an eyebrow. “My friend here goes crazy sometimes. Stress, you know?”

“I’m not cra—” the man starts, but his friend silences him with a hand clapped over his mouth.

Wonshik gets a good look at this other mortal; slim with a pretty face and an easy smile that is both sincere and jokey all at once. The officer hesitates, clearly unsure, aware he’s being watched, and the man’s friend pounces once more. “He knows the rules, and he’s sorry for breaking them. He won’t read books like that in the future!”

The officer looks around at the crowd—by now, whispering and pointing—before narrowing his eyes and stomping away. The two mortals clearly didn’t believe it would be that easy, because they both sag, the first man ripping his friend’s hand away from his mouth.

Wonshik turns away from the little scene and heads down a nearby alley. The violence and the blood spilled has set him on edge; if he had a heart, it would be racing, but all he has for evidence is his fangs poking stubbornly into his bottom lip. He doesn’t try to retract them, knowing he’s too keyed up for that. Instead he just walks, keeping his lips firmly shut so the mortals don’t see, turning his face to the sky so the stars fill his vision. It’s not even that mortals continue to surprise him—even with how long he’s lived, he is still floored by them, every single day—but that that mortal chose then and there to stand up for himself. It’s a quality that Wonshik admires, that courage, and one he wishes he had more of. He isn’t a coward, not really. But courageous is never the first word anyone uses to describe him. It’s always “pragmatic”. Or “cold”, both in the literal sense and the emotionally-unavailable sense. Or “observant.” Never “courageous.” Never “defiant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a consequence of their employment by the university, both Hakyeon and Wonshik have taken Japanese names. My friend Yezi chose these for me, and she's written a little explanation for how she chose each name, which is in the notes at the end. Hakyeon's name is Hanabusa Mitsuru (花房 允) and Wonshik's name is Kanamoto Tatsuru (金元 植).


	2. two

_3rd October 1433_  
Now that the marriage date is set—sometime in the new year, they’d said, and Wonshik had rolled his eyes—they are allowed to be in each other’s company whenever, not just when their parents arrange it. For the last few weeks she’s been coming over twice weekly; they would read together over cups of tea, and exchange furtive glances over whatever book Wonshik had stolen from his father that week. Now, though, it’s Friday, and she hasn’t made an appearance (Wonshik’s been asking the house slave a few times a day) and he’s worrying himself sick. He doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it, either, since his sister is too young to understand and he certainly can’t confide in his parents. So it’s with a heavy heart that he approaches his father that afternoon, bowing low and waiting for him to tell him to rise.

“What is it, Wonshik?”

Wonshik gulps. It’s not that he’s afraid of his father; not really. He _should_ be, because he knows that if his father found out about his theft he would be whipped so hard he wouldn’t be able to walk. But his father has kind eyes and a smile that comes easily, so when Wonshik looks up and speaks, it’s with a confidence he really shouldn’t possess. “Father, would it be possible for me to walk to the market this afternoon?” He hastily realises he doesn’t have an excuse, and scrambles for one desperately. “Um, I wish to get some nice paper. To write a letter.”

“A letter?” Wonshik’s father puts down his calligraphy brush and raises an eyebrow. “A letter to whom?”

For a moment, Wonshik considers backing out. It would be too easy to change his mind and tell his father to forget the whole thing, especially since this whole errand isn’t really worth making a fool out of himself over. But then he remembers how worried she’d been when he’d let her borrow the demon book, how she’d stashed it under her skirts and told him she wouldn’t let a soul see it, and sighs. Let his father think what he thinks. It doesn’t matter. “To, um, noona.”

There is only one woman he calls noona, so his father knows exactly who he is referring to. “I see,” he hums, stroking his beard with a definite amused air. “You know, I wooed your mother like that. Women are susceptible to poetry, and especially susceptible to love poetry written on beautiful paper with excellent calligraphy.” Wonshik feels heat rising on his cheeks, and grits his teeth in order not to flush any more. “Go, but take a slave with you.”

Wonshik bows low and scurries away, willing away the blush with herculean self-control. That’s most certainly _not_ the reason he is going to town—what is the point in trying to woo someone he is going to marry regardless?—but let his father live his delusions. Let his father believe that this marriage isn’t something he’s been prepared for his whole life. Let his father believe that this is what he actually _wants_ for himself, even though he knows it’s just what people his age and status do. They get married, they have children, they go to court, they become ministers or join the military. _None_ of those things particularly interest him, although it’s not like he has a say in the matter. His life, as far as he can see, has been planned out to the last minute detail. Nothing he does matters.

He manages to lose the slave easily, by telling her to wait in a jewellery shop and then slinking away, but finding his noona’s house is a little harder. He’s never really paid attention to where it was before, because he never had to; they were always carried there in litters, and he was always too busy being lectured on etiquette by his mother to pay attention to his surroundings. After some difficulty, though, he finds it, and kneels in the entrance hall nervously, trying to ignore the way his hands are shaking.

“Are you here to see her?”

He startles into a bow automatically. It’s her mother, a thin, nervous woman with a pinched face. He’s barely said ten words to her before. “Yes, my lady. I… was worried about her. She usually comes to visit me, but she has been absent this past week, and I’m concerned for... her…” he trails off, looking up into her face as he rises from his bow.

“I’m sorry,” she says, although she doesn’t sound it at all. “She isn’t well. Sick, you see.” Wonshik puffs himself up, and she holds out a hand to placate him. “She will be fine. The doctor says it will pass. Don’t worry yourself.”

He stares at her for a moment. Now _that_ , he does not believe. She’s never been sick before, not once; she’s as healthy as a horse, and loves lording it over him whenever he gets sniffly around wintertime. Her mother, too, is twisting her hands in the fabric of her skirt nervously. The dark red silk crumples underneath her hands, and he narrows his eyes. “Alright,” he mutters, because he knows this is a battle he cannot win. Sometimes, just sometimes, he wishes he was older. “Will you tell her I came to see her?”

He leaves with her mother’s assurances ringing in his ears, but he is thirteen, not an idiot. They are hollow. He knows that much. He has no idea what she did, or where she is, but his visit has done nothing to settle his nerves; if anything, it’s made him feel worse, and he doesn’t even feel guilty when he finds the slave still in the jewellery shop, nearly brought to tears by the thought that she’d lost her master. She’s a bit younger than him, and relatively new to the household; distractedly he puts his arm around her and guides her to a stall selling flavoured shaved ice. It’s probably too cold for it, but he buys them each some anyway, looking at the ground as he eats it because he can’t meet her eyes. He still needs to go to the paper shop—otherwise his father will _really_ be suspicious—but for the moment he’s content to wander, taking in life at the market, dodging horses and mules and slaves of all ages running about.

By the time he returns home, a fresh ream of pale pink paper under his arm, he’s chewed through the skin on his lip so it bleeds. It stings, but still he sucks at it, the pain distracting him from his traitorous thoughts about her.

//

Another three days pass.

It’s mid-morning, but whereas ordinarily he’d be studying, today he has the day off—no lessons. He plans to study anyway, but perhaps by practicing his calligraphy; perhaps he _will_ write a letter to her after all, considering he has no other way to communicate with her right now. He decides that is what he is going to do when one of the house slaves is dressing him; by the time the boy slides a dark blue _durumagi_ onto his shoulders, a type of house coat over the top of his hanbok, he is smiling at himself in the mirror. His hair, long and braided down his back (the one reason he is looking forward to getting married is because it will allow him to wear his hair as the men do, in a topknot on the top of his head), swings wildly when he turns his head to preen. It seems a pity to get all dressed up and not go anywhere, but—

“Master!” It’s the girl slave that came to the market with him yesterday, and when he turns he sees her bowing on the floor in the doorway. “The mistress is here to see you. She told me to say that she is here to return your book.”

His heart lifts. So she wasn’t sick at all! Or if she was, she’s made a very rapid recovery. He dismisses the boy slave with a nod, crossing the floor to sit behind his desk before waving to the girl to allow her to come in. He smooths the sleeves of his durumagi and arranges his calligraphy brushes just-so before placing his hands on his knees and trying to look blank.

And he succeeds as she enters and bows to him, as is customary. He succeeds when she looks up at him and smiles, although it’s a thin, watery smile. He succeeds right up until the point where she tries to get up from her bow and stumbles and falls, spilling onto the floor, arms and legs akimbo in the most unflattering of ways. He gets up and rushes to her, hooking a hand underneath her elbow and hauling her to her feet. She sways a little, and grimaces, and Wonshik’s stomach turns. He’s not seen her like this before—fragile, thin, pale. Her hair is escaping from her braid and sticking to her face, and slowly, he pulls some of it away for her. “What happened?”

“Get off me,” she protests, but it’s playful. When she shoves him away he allows her, backing away and retreating to a safe distance, watching and wary as she folds herself to the floor ungracefully. “If you get me some tea, I’ll explain.”

For this, he doesn’t even bother to summon a slave. He leaves her there and runs to the kitchens himself, slipping in his socks. Below him? Perhaps. But it’s worth it to see the look on her face when he comes back with a teapot and two cups and sets them down in front of her, pouring the tea as he pants from his sprint. “Okay…” he blurts, pressing the cup into her hands. “Tell me everything.”

She takes a sip of the tea and regards him, her eyes wide, face unreadable. She has a funny way of looking at him that makes him feel vulnerable, strips him of his layers. He doesn’t like it much. She unnerves him, in every way, and he’s only just starting to realise why. In lieu of an answer, however, she puts down her cup and hikes up her skirt. He gasps, leaning backwards, but she gathers the fabric at her knees and tilts her legs to show him her calves—and what’s there makes him wince. The back of her legs are horribly bruised, with welts stretched across them. They don’t stop there, either; where the fabric is bunched, just above her knees, he can see another set of marks disappearing up her thigh. “What happened?” he breathes in horror, because he’s been whipped before, but not like that. Never like that.

“They caught me with the book,” she sighs as she readjusts her skirt, looking down at the book on the floor next to her. _An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Demons and Monsters in Asia_ , the title reads, embossed and gilded. She splays a hand on it, reading the letters through touch. “Mother dearest did, I mean. And told Father. And he had me whipped.”

“Did you tell them…?” he whispers.

She glances up at him at that, eyebrow raised. “Where I got it? Of course not. I didn’t breathe a word to anybody. Father had me confined to my room until I gave him an answer. But I stopped eating so he would let me out again, and here we are. He still has no idea that you gave it to me. No one knows.”

Wonshik blanches. Those whip marks on her legs… the bruises… the way she’d felt so frail underneath his hands… This is all his fault, directly, since he was the very one to press the book into her hands with a warning to take care of it. He hadn’t considered it was _her_ he needed to be worried about, not the stupid book. “I’m sorry,” he says, and takes a sip of tea to mull over his next words. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore. I don’t think it’s worth it if you’re going to get whipped like that.”

“I think I can make that decision for myself,” she warns in reply, putting her empty cup down and pouring herself another, swatting away his hands when he reaches to do it for her. “I am older than you.”

“And _I_ will be your husband soon,” he retorts. “When that happens you have to do as I say.”

He says this last part facetiously, and they both know it; she grins as she brings the cup to her lips once more. They both know he is in no position to boss her around, and anyway, he wouldn’t want to. “We’ll see. In the meantime, do you have a new book for me?”

“Are you kidding? I’m not giving you another book! Look what happened when you got caught with the last one!” He gestures at her legs. “I don’t want you to get hurt, noona.”

At this, she leans forward onto her knees, putting herself into his orbit. It’s distracting, but he’s more caught up in how utterly defiant she looks; there’s a fire in her eyes, and her hair is sticking out around her head not unlike a halo. “I _said_ , I can decide for myself,” she hisses, and this time he knows she is not joking. “I knew perfectly well what the consequences were when I asked you to teach me to read. I am still perfectly aware of them. So I’ll ask you again: do you have a new book for me?”

“Don’t,” he whines, putting his hands up as he leans away from her. He loathes physical contact with anybody, and having her this close is making his heart race. “I’m sorry, alright? I won’t… I won’t doubt you again.” At this, she backs off, and it’s like he can breathe again. “I don’t have a new book for you because I was too busy _worrying_. Did your mother tell you I came to visit?”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course she didn’t. Well, if we’re not going to read, you can teach me how to write instead. It’s about time I learned.”

If Wonshik was the type of man some of his peers’ parents raised them to be, he would be thinking that this is why women shouldn’t be educated; once they get ideas in their head, they are dangerous. But Wonshik loves that. He loves how brazen she is about this, how when she raises her chin the fire of defiance, of disobedience, is still there in her eyes; she is courageous, and who is he to deny her that? “Okay,” he mutters, and reaches behind him for his calligraphy supplies. “Do you want to learn your name first?”

“No, stupid,” she sighs, playing with the end of her braid. “If I do that it’s going to be completely obvious who did it, isn’t it? Teach me how to write yours.”

Wonshik doesn’t bite back his smile as he starts setting up the calligraphy materials. Going through the routine of pouring water into the inkstone and rubbing the inkstick the way he was taught is therapeutic, and he does it especially slow so she can follow his movements. When he dips his brush in the ink and writes his name, she stares at the characters in wonderment, and Wonshik feels alive at being the one to give that to her.

 

 _18th November, 1917_  
“This is a terrible idea.”

It feels like the hundredth time Wonshik has uttered that phrase, if not more, and yet he can’t stop saying it over and over as they traipse home. This late, the trams have stopped; Wonshik had told Hakyeon to take the bicycle, but he prefers to walk, so here they are. As per usual there’s no one around, not at this time of night—Wonshik isn’t bothered, but he can tell Hakyeon is, because he’s speaking just a little too loudly.

“You,” Hakyeon says, whirling around and walking backwards, “are boring.” Wonshik opens his mouth to protest, but Hakyeon surges forward and claps a hand over his mouth, grinning widely. “Endearingly boring, but boring nonetheless. Come on. I know you. There’s gotta be _some_ curiosity buried in there somewhere underneath all the concer—ow! Don’t bite me!” He snatches his hand back, looking with disdain at the blood oozing from the puncture marks on his palm.

“Don’t put your hand near my mouth,” Wonshik replies breezily as he ambles along.

Hakyeon is at his most irritating when he is correct, and he’s certainly correct now. Wonshik’s boring because he’s spent four hundred and seventy odd years staying alive (as alive as he can be, considering he’s actually rather _dead_ ), despite everything that the universe has thrown his way, and he doesn’t want to change that any time soon. Being safe means being boring. But the fact that someone has singled him out for something as exciting as a clandestine midnight meeting in a church—well, even if he doesn’t want to be, he’s finding it hard to stop himself from getting a little bit eager. It must show on his face, because Hakyeon laughs out loud as he whirls around, sticking his palm out in front of him and watching the wounds close nearly instantly.

It’s like that—with Hakyeon laughing, looking utterly beautiful and otherworldly—that Wonshik realises he never really wants any of this to change. They are best friends, after all; Wonshik’s been with Hakyeon since the beginning, when Hakyeon was new and unsure and didn’t even know what he was. And it’s like that that Wonshik realises that if he goes any further he _knows_ something is going to change between them. Some dynamic will shift, some bond will be tested, and someone will end up hurt. He doesn’t know how he knows this—he never was gifted with sensing the future like some are—only that he does. He opens his mouth to tell Hakyeon this, reaches out towards him, and—

Footsteps. Running. A pair of them. The wet smell of an animal, the click of claws on asphalt. The touch that was meant to grab Hakyeon’s attention turns into something else, and he grabs Hakyeon from behind, clapping one hand over his mouth and dragging him backwards into the shadows of the nearest building. His mind—the rational part of it, or what’s left—vaguely realises that this is how he fed the other night, that he can feel Hakyeon’s fear beating underneath his fingertips, that it’s this that’s making his fangs run out. Hakyeon, for his part, has gone nearly entirely limp. This is certainly not the first time Wonshik has sensed something before he has, and it most certainly won’t be the last—Hakyeon’s senses are good compared to a mortal, but nothing compared to Wonshik’s.

“Is it—” Hakyeon manages to get out around Wonshik’s hand, the sounds albeit muffled, so Wonshik clutches him a little closer.

They stay like that, motionless in the shadows, until the figures appear. Two boys; they must be teenagers, but Wonshik has gotten bad at judging mortal age. They’re laughing to each other, hissing playfully in hushed tones, and there’s a dog with them—a stray, by the looks of it, its coat dull. Wonshik sees its ribs illuminated by the moonlight as they run past, not noticing the two creatures of the night still in the dark, and when they’re gone Wonshik releases his grip. “Sorry,” he blurts, retracting his fangs. “Sorry. I heard the dog and I just…”

Hakyeon looks angry, but when he sees how sincere Wonshik is, the rage fades from his face and he pats Wonshik on the arm somewhat comfortingly. “It’s okay. You can’t be too careful these days.”

Still, Wonshik feels somewhat sheepish at his gross overreaction, and they don’t speak any further as they make their way to the church. Sometimes he wonders if his cautiousness delves into paranoia; tonight is one of those times. He should have been able to detect the smell of a harmless street dog. He shouldn’t have mistaken it for what it was not.

“We’re here,” Hakyeon mutters, startling Wonshik out of his trance.

Sure enough, there they are, paused on the steps in front of the church. It’s grandiose in a sort of understated way, although Wonshik doesn’t know enough about churches to say whether this is the usual sort of style. Just the sight of it sends a thrill through him, even though he knows he’s safe, even though he knows that crossing the threshold will not cause him to burn up. It’s an irrational fear, but one he has nonetheless, and he and Hakyeon exchange a long, weighty glance. “Let’s go in, then,” he murmurs, aware that his voice is weak.

They push open one of the doors and spill into the church proper. If the outside was grandiose, the interior is even moreso—everywhere Wonshik looks he can see stained glass, depicting scenes from the Bible. To his right is a statue of an angel, and he looks at it evenly for a second before turning away with a snort.

“Ah! Kim Wonsik! I was wondering if you’d show.”

The pastor—Seongkwon, Wonshik reminds himself; he has a name—seemingly appears out of thin air. Even Hakyeon jumps before quickly regaining his composure, scurrying back to Wonshik’s side with a smile on his face. It’s not just the surprise that puts Wonshik on edge (although that doesn’t help; he is not used to being snuck up on). It’s the use of his name, his _proper_ name, not the name he uses every day in his job, with the authorities. The name that he keeps close to his chest. The only name he truly knows. Not to mention that Seongkwon is speaking in Korean, a language they all know is banned in every way but name. “Han Seongkwon,” he replies evenly, striding forward to take the pastor’s hand and shake it. “I must admit, I debated on whether or not to come. This is all very… secretive.”

“For good reason,” Seongkwon replies, and up close Wonshik can see he’s starting to go grey around the temples. “And this is…?”

“Hanabusa Mitsuru!” Hakyeon says cheerfully, offering Seongkwon his hand and smiling widely at him.

Wonshik nearly rolls his eyes. Very few people are able to remain composed under the weight of that smile; it really is something else. Wonshik has seen Hakyeon use it to topple kings and queens before. But Seongkwon just raises his eyebrows in mild amusement, and Wonshik nearly falls over at the shock. “Ah, don’t bother with that silly nonsense here. What’s your real name?”

Hakyeon’s eyes slide to Wonshik, as if asking for approval, and he shrugs minutely. If this pastor wants to buck all the rules then so be it. “Cha Hakyeon,” Hakyeon replies, still shaking Seongkwon’s hand.

“Cha Hakyeon! Nice to meet you too. I didn’t know Wonshik would be bringing a friend.”

Wonshik is the first to admit his patience is thin at the best of times. But tonight, after what happened earlier, with the two teenagers and the dog? His tenuous patience snaps and he folds his arms over his chest. “No offence, but I’m dying to know why you brought us here. And why you insist on calling us by names that we’re not allowed to use, in a language that’s banned. In fact, I’m really not sure why you addressed your note to me in the first place, considering we have never properly met before.”

Seongkwon smiles at this, which Wonshik is surprised by. He was brought up to show respect to his elders, and the tone he’s using does not indicate much respect—nor does his body language, which is hostile, and earns him an elbow in the side from Hakyeon. “I apologise for the secrecy,” Seongkwon replies, spreading his hands apologetically. “I did not mean to alarm you, if that is what has happened. But I have a proposal for you. Come, follow me.”

Slightly bewildered, they do, moving in sync. Wonshik lets Hakyeon take the lead, resisting the urge to let his fangs run out. The tension is almost unbelievable. He can’t shake the feeling that, waiting in a back room, is a stake with his name on it. That’s the only thing this _can_ be. He’s been found out. He must have been. As if picking up on his anxiety, Hakyeon looks back over his shoulder at him and offers him a smile, but it’s watery. They are both unsure.

“I addressed my letter to you because I know you’re very skilled at what you do,” Seongkwon begins abruptly, leading them towards the back of the church. “Your colleagues say they’ve never met anyone with a knowledge of Korean like you. And there’s whispers that you aren’t as content with this occupation as you, perhaps, should be.”

Wonshik stiffens. So, this _is_ a trap? He’s been found out, not for being a vampire but for being a patriot, and that is perhaps worse. “I am as content with the occupation as we all are,” he replies guardedly, the pain in his gums reaching fever pitch now.

“Oh, of course,” Seongkwon replies, and winks. “All the best for our country, etcetera, ad nauseum. But I, personally, am not as content with the occupation as everyone else is. Which is why I need your help.”

If he is trying to goad Wonshik into a response, an admission of guilt—that he hates the way his country has been invaded and pillaged and divided up like it’s worth nothing, that he hates the way he has to speak a language every day that is _not his own_ , that he hates the name they’ve thrust upon him as his new identity—he is going to have to try harder, because Wonshik just presses his lips together. He wants to go home, he realises belatedly. The excitement is gone. He’s just afraid, now, because depending on what they know he may be able to escape whatever they have in store for him… or not. Even Hakyeon is cautious, taking slow steps, glancing between Seongkwon and Wonshik like he’s not sure what to do. “I don’t know what you mean,” Wonshik says eventually, still following Seongkwon despite himself.

They come to an innocuous-looking door at the back of the church, and when Seongkwon flings it open Wonshik nearly recoils on instinct. It’s a well-lit staircase descending into the unknown, and just the sight of it has him on edge. He is not going down there. He isn’t stupid. Seongkwon looks at the two of them baulking in the doorway and sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I am part of the resistance movement. I want to make a newspaper.”

“A _newspaper?_ ” Wonshik’s first reaction is incredulity. That is the stupidest excuse he has ever heard in his life. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

Hakyeon has apparently decided it’s bullshit too because he edges a little closer to Wonshik, eyes narrowed. “Glamour him,” he says in German, knowing the pastor will not understand, “and let’s get out of here.”

Seongkwon continues like Hakyeon hasn’t even spoken. “I don’t know what else I can offer you,” he replies, shrugging. “Down there is all the evidence you need to believe. A newspaper is an effective method of motivating the people, especially if it’s in Korean, like I wish it to be. That’s why I brought you here. I want you to write a linguistics column.”

“A linguistics column!” Wonshik laughs. He can’t help it. He’s sick of being played, and it’s with this flash of anger that he grabs Hakyeon by the wrist and narrows his eyes at Seongkwon. “Fine. Let’s go and see this evidence, Hakyeon.”

He doesn’t even care that he’s being hideously rude as he drags Hakyeon down the staircase with him, his grip tight even as Hakyeon wriggles and tries to get away. His fangs slide out with his rage, and he presses his lips shut to hide them even though Seongkwon is clattering down the stairs after them and can’t even see. If this really is a trap, if they are being played, Wonshik doesn’t know if he won’t have the self-control to not rip the heads off anyone who dares cross him. He knows Hakyeon feels this, because he whines a little, but Wonshik does not relent. He doesn’t know what he’ll find at the bottom. He doesn’t know if he cares.

“As I was saying…” Seongkwon calls from behind them as they spill out at the bottom of the stairs. “All the evidence is there.”

At that, Wonshik stops in his tracks, dropping Hakyeon’s wrist like it’s burnt him. Retracting his fangs—albeit reluctantly, since they don’t want to hide away again—he gapes at the room in front of him. The church basement, he’d assume, except it’s been taken over by several large machines that he doesn’t recognise. There’s a few mortals in here, sitting at desks on the far side of the room, but Wonshik doesn’t pay attention to them. “Printing presses,” Hakyeon murmurs in admiration, stepping up beside Wonshik so their shoulders are brushing. “He really wasn’t lying.”

If Wonshik had the gall to be ashamed of his overreaction, he would, but he’s too busy staring in awe. Seongkwon has transformed the room into a warm space, even though most of the floor is occupied by the machines; at the wall at the back is a blackboard with notes scribbled all over it, as well as sheets of newspaper stuck up as far as the eye can see. Once again his paranoia has gotten the best of him, and he turns, running a hand through his hair somewhat guiltily. “Seongkwon, sir...” he starts, but Seongkwon just smiles at him.

“Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t have believed it either, if I was you. These are trying times. But do you see what I mean now?”

“Yes,” he breathes, turning back to the machines lying dormant. This is his chance to make a difference, a _real_ difference, a way to fight back without violence—because he can’t be trusted with violence. And to do it in a way he likes, writing about a language he loves? Even better. “But I’m still a little confused about why you want _me_. And why a linguistics column is relevant.”

Seongkwon spreads his hands again, the gesture somewhat fitting. “They want to kill off our language by forcing us to speak theirs. And they’ll succeed, if we let them. Complacency breeds apathy. But if we have you writing a column on our language—not just about _how_ to use it but _why_ it became the way it is—I think that’s a way to keep it alive. Knowledge is a powerful weapon.”

Inwardly, Wonshik agrees. It’s why he’s lived as long as he has; he’s wise, just as Hakyeon is. He’s seen many an intelligent but ignorant vampire be made and snuffed out nearly instantly over the centuries. It’s all-too common, and just another reason why he is cautious in nearly every new situation. Vampires are hard to kill in some ways, but surprisingly easy in others, and he wants to be around for a while longer yet. He wants to outlast this damn occupation, and he sure as hell wants to keep his language alive. _His_ language. He never had children—never had time for it and never wanted them—so creating this language was his passion project, his child, the one thing he poured everything of himself into.

“Alright,” he says, putting his hand out after a moment. “I’m in.”

Seongkwon takes his hand and shakes it even more enthusiastically than the last time, the grin stretching across his face a lovely sight to see. “Wonderful! I’m slowly gathering more staff, but I have to be cautious about it, for obvious reasons. We should be ready to get up and running in about a month. In the meantime, let me introduce you to everyone…”

Wonshik gets lost in his own head as Seongkwon leads them around the machines towards the mortals, who have watched their arrival with poorly-concealed interest. “Do you think Hakyeon can do something, too?” he mutters to Seongkwon, smiling at the first mortal, a girl a bit younger than him. She bows low to him, her eyes bright, and Wonshik wonders if he might see her in his classes next year.

“Of course!” Seongkwon says, nodding. “I’m sure we can find a job for him, if he doesn’t want to write. This is Kim Jisoo…”

Wonshik makes his way down the line of mortals, shaking their hands and smiling and making small talk. He doesn’t realise that Hakyeon has been uncharacteristically silent until he reaches the last mortal, a tall boy with a pretty face, his hair brushed back from his forehead. The effect is marred somewhat by the mottled bruises around his nose. _Too pretty for your own good_ , Wonshik thinks, and smiles at him as he reaches for his hand. Hakyeon murmurs something from behind him in German, but he doesn’t catch it, and—

A jolt runs through him when their skin touches, him and that human, and with a start Wonshik becomes aware of a few things instantly. The first is that this is the boy from the tram station the other night. He recognises him, now; how he didn’t sooner is anyone’s guess. The bruise on his face and the slight way his nose is crooked makes sense in the wake of this realisation. The second is that this man _knows_ , he knows what Wonshik is or at least knows he’s not human—and the thought of that is too terrifying to bear, so Wonshik drops his hand, appalled.

“This is Lee Hongbin,” Seongkwon is saying, but Wonshik’s fangs are out even though he doesn’t remember them descending. The man, Hongbin, looks as horrified as he does, cradling his hand to his chest like Wonshik has burnt him, and that knowledge between them is so heavy that Wonshik nearly wilts underneath it. “He’s an aspiring linguist!”

Wonshik struggles for a moment. He can’t reply without his fangs showing and, for the second time that day, they refuse to retract. He eventually wins out and turns back to Seongkwon with a smile, but it’s weak. He is shaken to the core. “I see,” he says quietly. All he can hear is the thudding of all the heartbeats in the room, and he wonders where his self-control went. “That’s nice…”

“But!” Hakyeon butts in, flashing that megawatt smile at Seongkwon (out of the corner of his eye, Wonshik sees one of the girls start fanning herself). “I think we need to be heading home. I need to prepare for lessons tomorrow! I’m an English teacher, you see, although I’m not as talented as Wonshik.” Faintly, Wonshik realises that this is Hakyeon’s desperation bleeding through—he’s babbling, although to the mortals it just comes off as charming. “And Wonshik gets tired early. I had to drag him out of bed to come here.” He laughs, long and loud and utterly fake, and they’re all buying it—until Wonshik sneaks a glance at Hongbin, who is staring at the two of them, troubled.

Wonshik nods. “Sadly, yes,” he adds, hoping that he can come off half as charming as Hakyeon is. “But I can come back another night? Once I have some time to draft an article, of course.”

Seongkwon ushers them out, nodding sagely and listening to the two of them babble on desperately. He assures them they’re both welcome to come back anytime and leaves them with a warning to keep their secret—and, amusingly, an invitation to church on Sunday that Wonshik is sure they won’t take up. They’re halfway down the street, running, when they hear footsteps behind them and turn in unison.

It’s Hongbin, as Wonshik somehow knew it would be, and his eyes are wide as he skids to a stop. He isn’t wearing a coat and wraps his arms around himself as he looks between the two of them. “What are you?”

“I’m an English teacher, and he’s a linguist,” Hakyeon replies, his voice too enthusiastic, verging on grating.

Hongbin shakes his head desperately. “No, I mean… what _are_ you?”

“Don’t,” Wonshik warns, taking a step closer. Why he’s warning this mortal he has no idea. “Don’t push it. You’ll regret it if you do.”

At that, Hongbin pales, practically blending in with the pavement behind him. The only colour left on him is two spots of colour on his cheeks, the blood underneath his skin colouring him so finely, and Wonshik swallows. He can hear his heart, racing hard and fast, and wonders what the fuck this all means. “Okay,” he says. It’s barely a whisper, but they both hear it. “Okay.”

They watch in silence as he turns and hurries back to the church, shivers wracking him from the inside-out. They don’t even speak as they turn and start running through the fallen leaves, running towards home; there’s no point. There’s nothing to say, not in public.

Wonshik swears he can hear Hongbin’s heartbeat the whole way.

//

By the time they get home, some of the uneasiness has worn off. Wonshik can’t tell if that’s because of the distance between them and Hongbin, or the time it took them to run back to the house, but either way he is glad for it. He waits until Hakyeon shuts the door behind him to rip his jacket off violently. “What the fuck,” he says, his voice remarkably calm, “was that?”

Hakyeon, for his part, looks just as shaken as Wonshik does, and sits in the mess of their bedding heavily. “I’ve only ever known one other mortal like that…” he breathes, and the tone of his voice is almost painfully heavy. “My—my slave. Jihoon.”

“You didn’t answer the question.” Wonshik is aware he sounds ridiculous. He’s also aware that getting angry at Hakyeon over this is absurd. It’s not Hakyeon’s fault; it’s not anyone’s. But he cannot stand the idea of being in such danger.

“I don’t know what they call them,” Hakyeon replies, looking up at Wonshik reproachfully. “I’ve heard some refer to them as having the Sight, whatever that means. But they can detect immortals, sense our auras.”

Wonshik wants to sit like Hakyeon is. He wants to sleep and forget this night ever happened. But it’s hours until dawn, and he’s so keyed up he knows he won’t be able to sleep. What he _needs_ is to go out and hunt, to give himself entirely over to the monster lurking within—that’s the only thing that can calm him when he’s like this, so keyed up he can barely stand to stand in the one spot. “And you know what that means for us?” he roars, gesturing at the door in a broad sweeping motion. “Because you’re not stupid. But I am, for going there in the first place.”

“Hey,” Hakyeon replies, sounding slightly put-out. Wonshik doesn’t react as he comes up to him and puts his arms around him, although Hakyeon seems mildly appalled at the way Wonshik is trembling. “He won’t turn us in. Did you see the look on his face? He’s terrified of you, after you threatened him.”

“You know that wasn’t a threat,” Wonshik replies, taking an uneven step backwards. He can bear Hakyeon’s touch sometimes, but not when he’s angry and terrified and kicking himself for even thinking this was a good idea. “I’m going. I’ll be back before dawn. Don’t wait up for me.”

He doesn’t feel guilty as he springs away into the darkness, eyes glowing and fangs extended. He tries to ignore the way his hands are trembling terribly. He manages not to think of the look on Hakyeon’s face, of the look on Hongbin’s, of how he may have just damned them all.

 

 _27th February 1434_  
They are married in the morning, in the cool, crisp air of winter, shivering underneath their mountainous wedding clothes and refusing to look at each other.

It had been dull. That’s what he remembers afterwards, when one of the slaves is undressing him slowly. It stretched on forever, and he’d been relieved when they’d finally said their vows just so he could get it over with. She’d had a grim sort of look on her face, he remembers, her lips in a thin line like she couldn’t quite believe her life was being signed away from her just like that with a snap of her father’s fingers.

He can relate.

For the first time in his life, the slave doing his hair does not braid it and tie a ribbon at the end. Instead, as he sits there in front of the mirror with his eyes closed, she cuts it and arranges it in a bun on top of his head, topping everything off with a crown that feels all-too fancy for him. When he opens his eyes and looks in the mirror he nearly does not recognise the boy staring back at him. Can his life really have changed that much, just from being married? He’d known it was coming, of course, but now that it’s done he can’t help feeling like this is the final nail in the coffin. He is committed to the path his father has set out for him and there is nothing he can do about it.

“Master,” one of the slaves says from behind him, and he swears he stops breathing for a moment. “The mistress is here.”

He knows what’s coming, although only vaguely—his father was meant to tell him the details, but Wonshik had escaped into the gardens before he could listen—and he’s dreading it more than he’s dreaded anything in his life. “Alright,” he murmurs, turning and already missing the swing of his braid behind him. “Send her in, and please bring us tea.”

She bows low to greet him and he does the same, only noticing that he is trembling when he rises and sees his hands practically vibrating on the hardwood of the floor. She’s looking at him evenly, and he notices that she isn’t wearing a braid any longer either—instead her hair is done up in an elaborate up-do, and he eyes it skeptically. “I don’t want to do this,” he says blandly, because there’s really no point beating around the bush. He doesn’t have the gall to look her in the eye, even though he’s surprised at how calm his voice is. “What husbands and wives are meant to do, I mean. After the wedding.”

“You’re blushing,” she points out, and opens her mouth to say more but is interrupted by the arrival of the slave with the tea. She pours them each a cup, and Wonshik notices how her hands are shaking, too, the tea missing the cups entirely and ending up on the floor. “I don’t want to do it either,” she finishes a moment later, her voice so quiet he can barely hear her.

Wonshik has never in his life felt more relieved. “Good,” he says, and drinks all his tea in one go, not caring that it scalds his throat. “I mean… It’s not that you’re not beautiful.” She looks at him over her cup and raises her eyebrows, and she can tell he means no harm. “But I… the thought of it… disgusts me. I’m terrified of it.”

“It doesn’t disgust me, but I can’t blame you,” she murmurs a moment later, scooting forward a little so their knees are touching. He doesn’t recoil. “We were never really given a choice, were we?”

“Is anyone?”

They drink in silence after that, not quite sure to do with this new information, neither sure of how to proceed. At least Wonshik does not have to worry about consummating the marriage, not now and possibly not ever. He doesn’t mind being married to her as long as he never has to touch her like that. Vaguely, he realises that these thoughts aren’t normal, but then even more vaguely he realises he does not care. “We could just tell everyone we did it,” he offers a while later, when the tea is finished. “And lie to them.”

She leans back on her hands at that and grins at him. “You know I’d never turn down an opportunity to pull the wool over my parent’s eyes. Even if I don’t really answer to them anymore. You’re my new master, now.”

Wonshik pulls a face at that word. “Yuck. You’re my equal, if not my superior. Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry, honey,” she replies, and he rolls his eyes at the term of endearment. It sounds foreign on her lips, but he finds he doesn’t mind it. “What can I call you then?”

“Call me Wonshik,” he says, loving the shock on her face. It’s not the done thing, for wives to call their husbands by name. But—and he is only just realising this—it is clear that this is not going to be a conventional marriage. “It’s my name. And what should I call you?”

“Noona,” she replies instantly with a raised eyebrow.

There’s nothing wrong with that, he supposes, but it doesn’t quite fit. He’s been calling her noona for as long as he can remember, and now the terms of their relationship have changed he feels like what he calls her should change, too. “Can I give you a name?” he offers quietly, looking down at his hands. He’s still trembling—he’s still terrified, if he’s honest; terrified that someone is going to burst in and force them together—but it’s less, now. “Look through my books and pick some characters for you?”

He isn’t expecting her to hug him, which is exactly what she does, and it catches him by such surprise he hugs her back on instinct. She’s warm and soft and smells nice, but that’s it. It’s a comforting smell, not anything more, and he realises he’s okay with that—or he will be, in time. “Oh my god,” she breathes in his ear, and he can hear the joy in her voice. “I would love that.”

“Well,” he replies, pulling back and cradling her face between his hands. They’re grinning wildly at each other, and he hopes that that, of all things, does not change. They always have fun together. He wants that to continue. “Let’s start! It’s not like we’ve got anything better to be doing.”

She laughs at that, long and loud, and after a pause he gives in and laughs too.


	3. three

_27th November, 1917_  
Wonshik’s worked damn hard to put the incident at the church out of his mind. He’d apologised to Hakyeon in the unspoken way that they do whenever they fight—he’d left a small bunch of wildflowers on Hakyeon’s bedding before he retired for the dawn, and had found a reciprocal bunch pressed into his hands when he’d woken up—but they haven’t spoken of it again. He’s not sure if it’s fear or wilful ignorance that’s keeping them both silent, but he doesn’t push it. What is there to push? He’s heard whispers, of course, of mortals who can detect immortals, but he’s never actually _met_ one. From what he can gather (scraps of information gleaned from a sentence here, a word there, a poem in Hakyeon’s journal), Jihoon’s ability was loosely defined at best and nothing but feelings at worst. What this means for them, right now, Wonshik has no idea—so he just keeps his head down and goes about his business, desperately trying to ignore the feeling of dread that creeps into his heart whenever he thinks of the mortal Hongbin.

Yes, he’s worked damn hard to forget about it, which is when a knock comes at his office door one night as he’s preparing for classes the next day he calls for the knocker to come in, figuring it’ll be Hakyeon heading home. He only realises that it’s not Hakyeon when the person doesn’t say a word, and when he snaps back to attention he realises that the pattern of that heartbeat is most definitely not Hakyeon’s. Instead, hovering in the doorway like he’s really not sure he should be there is—is Hongbin, his hair falling into his eyes, the bruises around his nose fading into a nasty yellow.

“What are you doing here?” Wonshik murmurs, putting his pen down slowly.

Hongbin doesn’t look threatening, and he doesn’t have a stake in his hand—but Wonshik can’t be too sure, not in times like these, so he tenses, preparing for a fight. With as old as he is, it will be nearly impossible for this mortal—any mortal—to get the upper hand, but he’s seen vampires hundreds of years older than him surprised and staked, and he’s determined not to join them. He wishes he could determine Hongbin’s intentions. He wishes he didn’t feel so unarmed.

“Um,” Hongbin starts, his heart pounding in his chest, and belatedly Wonshik realises he’s hungry. It’s been a good ten days since he fed, and while he isn’t reaching the point of desperation, his gums begin to throb as his fangs ache to push through. “Seongkwon sent me? To check on your progress on your article. For the…” he lets his voice drop into a whisper, and takes a step forward to ensure Wonshik can hear him, not realising that Wonshik could hear him if he was across the hall in the other room. “The special project.”

Wonshik doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t even pretend to (which he usually does around mortals). It’s a valid excuse, but he still has no idea if Hongbin’s being genuine or not. “Uh-huh,” he replies eventually, sitting back in his seat and folding his arms. “You can tell him I’ve started on something, but it won’t be done for… Oh, another few days.”

“Can I see it?” Hongbin edges closer again, eyes wide.

His first instinctual reaction is _no_. Mortals are nothing but trouble—hell, even befriending other immortals usually ends up in tears or, worse, bloodshed. But then he hears Hakyeon’s voice in his ear telling him to _live a little_ and considers; there’s no way Hongbin would be able to overpower him, not with how prepared for that situation he is. Not to mention his curiosity is piqued, as much as it shouldn’t be. Hongbin knows he’s different, but isn’t afraid of him. That in itself is unique. “Sure,” he sighs eventually, unfolding his arms to dig through the reams of paper on his desk, eventually procuring the article he’d partly written a few days earlier and forgot about until now. “Come, sit.”

Obediently, Hongbin crosses the floor (not that there’s much to cross—Wonshik’s office is very small) to sink down in one of Wonshik’s chairs, taking the piece of paper with interest. “This is good,” he says after a moment, looking up at Wonshik. “Really good. Where were you going to take it?”

“This is the first of three parts,” Wonshik replies happily. This, at least, is where he is comfortable. He is most at home talking about languages, especially his own, and it’s nice to see that Hongbin shares that passion. “You know, covering Old Korean, and then Middle Korean, and then the language as it is now. After that I was thinking of delving into detail about how Hangul was created.”

Nodding, Hongbin looks up from the paper. “That’s a great idea! If we explain _how_ our language came to be…”

“...The more people will take an interest in it,” Wonshik finishes for him, smiling happily and making sure his fangs aren’t running out. “Well, hopefully. If anyone even reads it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Hongbin replies, waving his hand in the air dismissively. “Seongkwon has more connections than you’d think. People will read it, alright. But back to the article. What sources were you going to use?”

At that, Wonshik comes back down to Earth with a decisive _thump_ , and stares hopelessly at Hongbin. He doesn’t need to use any sources—he’d helped create Hangul, for God’s sake. Writing about it is as natural as—well, as natural as not breathing. But Hongbin can’t know that. Hongbin can’t even _think_ that, because if he goes digging he’ll find Wonshik’s name scattered throughout the history books, although so far thankfully no one has cared enough to connect the dots. “Um,” he starts, and runs a hand through his hair. “I was just going to go looking through the library, I guess. Good academic texts are hard to find, but they’re there.”

“Can I help?” Hongbin’s sentence curls up at the end, hopeful, and Wonshik shuts down any pity he might feel.

“No,” he replies brusquely. “You can’t.”

Hongbin just stares at him, eyes wide. He is being nearly unforgivably rude, he knows, but he can’t risk being found out—if Hongbin discovers what he is, Wonshik will have to glamour it out of him, and glamouring such a large realisation as that might just turn him mad. They had such a rapport, but as Hongbin’s heart thuds in his ears he realises that there’s no point continuing this silly game when all they have in common is a love for a language that’s dying, anyway; Wonshik’s been dead for four hundred years, and Hongbin still has life in his veins. Life that is being very noisy. Life that’s making Wonshik’s gums throb with the urge to leap across the desk and tear his throat out, to drink his blood, to bathe in it.

Thoughts like this used to frighten him, but he doesn’t even bat an eyelash at them now. He doesn’t let them show on his face, either; he’s good at keeping the monster locked up.

“You should go,” he mutters, turning back to his desk and pulling out the lesson plans he was working on before he was interrupted. “I’ll drop the article around at the church when I’m finished with it.”

They sit there in silence like that for a few moments, Wonshik doing his damnedest to ignore Hongbin and Hongbin—well, Hongbin’s just sitting there. He wonders what the hell is running through his mind, but most importantly he wonders when the hell he’s going to _leave_ so Wonshik can go, too. He needs to feed. He won’t be able to get any more work done tonight, not when he’s this keyed up.

Hongbin is fast when he moves, but Wonshik is faster. He’d seen the movement out of the corner of his eye and is on his feet faster than the human can blink, gripping Hongbin’s wrist, lips twisted into a scowl. The only thing that keeps his fangs from running out is the knowledge that he can’t ruin it for them, can’t risk glamouring Hongbin—some instinct in him tells him Hongbin won’t take to glamouring easily, anyway. Just like last time he feels vaguely electric when they touch, but it’s an unpleasant feeling, one he doesn’t like in the slightest. “Don’t touch me again,” he snarls through gritted teeth, fighting tooth and nail not to let his fangs run out, not to let his eyes flash red, not to snap Hongbin’s neck here and now.

Instead of obeying, though, Hongbin wriggles free of Wonshik’s grasp and—and cups Wonshik’s face. The touch is affectionate without being romantic, but still Wonshik hisses. He can’t help himself. It comes out more animalistic than he intended, and he wonders how the hell one stupid mortal can make him come so unravelled. This is _not_ who he is. He never loses control. “What are you?” Hongbin breathes, his eyes searching Wonshik’s face like he can find the answers there. “I mean… you’re all grey.”

“I said,” Wonshik begins rather calmly, “don’t fucking touch me!”

When he splays his hands on Hongbin’s chest and pushes him across the room, something inside of him stops him from pushing with all his strength. That would have sent Hongbin through the wall and into the hall, possibly killing him; as it is, he slams up against the wall, eyes wide and winded, and Wonshik resists the urge to leap for the kill. His fangs are out, and he doesn’t even bother trying to retract them. They won’t go. He knows that already. “Go,” he mutters, looking at the ground so Hongbin can’t see the evidence of what he is—evidence supporting a conclusion he will no doubt come to on his own if things continue. “Don’t touch me again. Don’t come here again.”

“Okay,” Hongbin says, and his voice is steady—but his heartbeat cannot lie, and Wonshik knows he is terrified as he turns to go. “I’ll see you in church.”

Wonshik nearly laughs as the door slams shut behind him.

//

By the time he staggers home, the sun is threatening to rise, so much so that he’s struggling to stay awake as he shuts the door behind him. He isn’t normally this reckless, but staying out all night and hunting until he couldn’t remember his own name is the only thing that helped drive away the way Hongbin’s touch had chilled him to the core. Hakyeon sits up blearily, one eye cracked open, and grunts in a way that lets Wonshik know he’s displeased. “Where were you?”

“Show some respect,” Wonshik mutters, taking off his jacket and dropping it on the floor where he stands. The rest of his clothes follow the jacket, and when he’s properly naked he stretches languidly, narrowing his eyes at Hakyeon in the darkness.

“Sorry,” Hakyeon says, voice thick with sleep. “Where were you, _hyung?_ ” His tone is pointed, and Wonshik doesn’t miss the way he sneers at the word. “It’s really close to dawn.”

Ordinarily Wonshik wouldn’t sleep naked (even though Hakyeon has seen him naked thousands of times over and it’s nothing special, he still feels weird without clothes) but right now he’s just too damn tired to care, so he crosses the floor to his bedding and sinks down into it gratefully. “Feeding,” he mutters into his pillow, sighing.

There’s a long silence, and he thinks maybe he’s gotten away with it, that Hakyeon won’t ask any more questions—but then he shuffles closer and puts a hand on Wonshik’s arm, the touch warm, and he jumps. “Your friend came to visit me today,” he says conversationally, like he’s talking about the weather. “Hongbin, from the church.”

“You too?” Wonshik groans, rolling over and pulling the blankets over himself in a cocoon. “Was this before or after I nearly sent him through a wall?”

“You _what?_ ”

Wonshik bites back a smile. “He touched me. He touched my _face_ ,” he offers as way of an explanation, and hears Hakyeon sigh. “I don’t think he’s dangerous… but he’s weird. It’s like he knows we’re different, without knowing exactly what we are.”

The room is entirely blacked-out, but his internal clock is telling him it’s now dawn. This, combined with the fact that he’s lying down, means that he’s already swimming back into the deep, dreamless sleep that claims him every day when Hakyeon speaks, and the words are kind of hard to hear. “Jihoon didn’t know what she was, not really,” he murmurs, and Wonshik realises Hakyeon is talking about his maker, the woman he never speaks of.

“At least you knew yours,” Wonshik replies before letting go into sleep.

//

As unnerving as Hongbin is, his visit galvanises Wonshik, and two days later he’s finished the article and finds himself on the church steps again, sheets of paper in hand and the taste of uncertainty in his mouth. At least this time he’s well-fed—he probably didn’t need to feed again, not after the night where he’d stayed out until dawn, but he’d decided not to take his chances. Hongbin’s… ability? has a way of cutting through the defenses he puts up (not unlike Hakyeon, really), making him more vampiric in the process, and he’d rather not have to glamour a roomful of people because he lost control and let his fangs run out.

“Wonshik!” Seongkwon calls as he enters the basement, making a beeline to shake his hand (Just like last time, Wonshik isn’t quite used to that name leaving anyone’s lips but Hakyeon’s—for the last century he’s been going by various pseudonyms depending on what country they were in and what role they were playing; he’s been Philippe, Ernst, Oliver, Meng Tian, and now Tatsuru), grinning widely. “Welcome.”

“I brought my article,” Wonshik says, faintly because Seongkwon has hooked a hand in the crook of his elbow and is tugging him towards the rows of desks and he has no choice but to follow.

“This desk is yours,” Seongkwon says with a smile, gesturing to the empty desk. “Right next to Hongbin’s. I hope he can learn from you, since he can’t exactly go to your classes.” Seongkwon’s smile turns rueful as he pushes Wonshik gently towards the seat. “Here, sit.”

When Wonshik turns his head to look, Hongbin is studying the piece of paper in front of him with an intensity so fierce Wonshik is surprised it doesn’t burst into flames—and that would be fine, except the paper is blank, and Hongbin is flushed a pale shade of pink. “Thanks,” he murmurs, turning back to Seongkwon as he sits, feeling entirely out of his depth and wishing he’d brought Hakyeon, who handles every social interaction with aplomb. Wonshik would much rather be alone with a pile of books. “Would you proofread my article for me? I’m happy to edit whatever you suggest.”

“Sure,” Seongkwon says, taking the article and heading back towards the stairs. “And call me hyung, Wonshik!”

No one is looking as Wonshik smiles madly at Seongkwon’s back. He’s older than everyone else in this room combined, but they don’t need to know that. The basement isn’t as full tonight—there’s Wonshik, Hongbin (who is still boring holes in that piece of paper), and a girl on a corner desk who is pecking away furiously at a typewriter, but otherwise it’s empty. The machines, casting odd shadows in the dim light, look strange, and Wonshik doesn’t like looking at them for too long. He still writes everything by hand, and only catches the trams because he has to—modern technology just confuses him, and he has no desire to learn about any of it. Hakyeon had become slightly obsessed with automobiles when he was in Europe, but Wonshik had stayed well-clear. He could run faster than them, anyway, so what was the point?

“When you said I was grey,” he blurts suddenly to Hongbin, “what did you mean?”

He doesn’t quite know why the words he’s been thinking about for days now suddenly decided to burst free, and turns his head to the desk so he can’t see Hongbin’s expression. It’s not that he minds being called grey, not really; grey is a nice enough colour. It’s just that no mortal has ever behaved quite like Hongbin has, and he finds himself intrigued beyond measure. It’s very much a sense of push-pull, that Hongbin is just as cautious as he is, and that is somewhat comforting.

“Um,” Hongbin says, and Wonshik meets his eyes. “Um, um, um, how to explain… When I look at you, I see you, but I also see grey around you. Kind of like an…”

“Aura?” Wonshik supplies, and Hongbin nods furiously.

“Yep, aura. It’s sort of… cold.” Moving very slowly, he reaches out a hand towards Wonshik, giving him plenty of advance warning. But Wonshik doesn’t move an inch, lets Hongbin touch him on the arm, watches his pupils blow wide at the touch. “Metallic. Tinny.”

Wonshik doesn’t quite know how to react. Whatever he’d been expecting Hongbin to say, it certainly wasn’t _that_ , and he just gapes for a moment. Every immortal has an aura, of course; false immortals can’t see them, but they exist nonetheless. As far as he knows only demons and angels can see auras. He hadn’t realised some mortals can, too, and it’s… disturbing. “What about Hakyeon?” he asks, deliberately pulling his arm out of Hongbin’s reach.

Hongbin sighs dreamily and rests his chin on his hands. “Hakyeon is blue. Really pale blue, and kind of shimmery, like gossamer. He feels like spring, like flowers. All warm and… intoxicating.”

Wonshik isn’t particularly surprised at that—if the one word everyone uses to describe him is “pragmatic”, Hakyeon’s word would be “intoxicating”. He is addictive in every way, or so Wonshik is told; he himself doesn’t feel the allure, but he can see how others do. “You make me sound so—” he almost says _dead_ , before belatedly realising that he is, “—boring.”

“Oh, no!” Hongbin protests. “Your aura is fascinating. It feels kind of—”

He cuts himself off from whatever he was about to say because Seongkwon arrives, Wonshik’s article clutched in his hand. He has more than a few suggestions on where to take the article, and Wonshik is happy to comply—writing for newspapers isn’t something he’s done before, so he was prepared to edit. “I’ll head home to fix this,” he says, starting to get up from his seat.

“Stay!” Hongbin says, and then flushes. “I mean, if you want to. It might be easier to work here than at home…”

An impossibility, since here he has the distraction of heartbeats in his ears, but he shrugs. He’s finding it hard to deny Hongbin anything, especially when he blushes—it’s kind of endearing, and makes Wonshik, weirdly, want to pat his head. He then catches what he’s thinking and turns back to his article, gritting his teeth. “If you insist,” he grunts, figuring that’s all Hongbin will get for now.

They work in silence for a while, Wonshik managing to lose himself in the characters he knows so well. Seongkwon had suggested cutting down the article and adding in a small part at the conclusion, leading into Middle Korean, and he’s halfway through rewording that when a note slides onto his desk from Hongbin’s direction. _I never asked—how old are you?_ it reads, in neat, boxy handwriting, and Wonshik bites back a smile as he takes the note and pauses, pencil poised. The temptation for him to write the truth— _four hundred and seventy three years, how about you?_ —is too high, but he knows he can’t. Hongbin knows he’s different, sure, but he doesn’t know how, and probably has no idea just how different he is. It’s not Wonshik’s job to introduce the world of immortality to him, so with a resigned sigh he turns his head back to the paper and writes _twenty-three, you?_ It’s the age he was when he was turned, but he’d really had to think about it for a while. His mortal years seem so far away they’re almost like a dream.

 _Twenty-two_ , Hongbin writes back, and he’s added a small _hyung_ underneath it.

Well, at least this time the honorific is being used correctly. Wonshik smiles indulgently at the note and goes back to his article, once again losing himself in his own head and getting wrapped up in his work. It’s all too easy for him to do so; he was always way too good at shutting out the outside world, turning inward (although not introspective), ignoring everything that’s going on around him. Even Hakyeon knows to steer clear when he gets like this. By the time he’s finished, an hour later, he looks around to realise he and Hongbin are alone in the basement—and Hongbin has fallen asleep, his head pillowed on his arms. He looks younger like that, more innocent. It’s sort of sweet.

Wonshik doesn’t wake him. Instead, he heads back upstairs and finds Seongkwon in his office (does he ever sleep?), hands him the finished article, and lets him know that Hongbin is still downstairs sleeping. By the time he leaves the church, there’s a few more hours of night left, but he can’t be bothered to do anything useful with himself. He just wants to go home and crawl into bed; while he hasn’t forgotten the language he grew up with, reaching that far back in his head for the correct grammar and particles and syntax is surprisingly exhausting. Not to mention he can’t wait to see the look on Hakyeon’s face when he tells him that Hongbin can read auras. Every time they see each other is a risk, because any day Hongbin could figure out what he is—but it’s exciting, and he hates himself for being slightly addicted to that.

 

 _6th May 1438_  
Wonshik is elbow-deep in learning characters by rote when Taehee throws her needlework at his head.

“Ow!” he yelps, dropping his pen and splattering ink all over his hand and the page he was working on. He turns with a scowl to find her sitting primly, hands folded in her lap, an angelic expression on her face like she can do no wrong—but Wonshik isn’t fooled. “What the hell was that for?”

She crawls closer to him across the floor, her expression shifting into one of mischief. “Dear husband,” she starts, and Wonshik rolls his eyes. “I am bored.”

“How many times have I told you to not interrupt me when I’m studying?” he counters as she pushes her face close to his, eyes wide, making him recoil on instinct. “And now look what you’ve done.”

Smoothly, he reaches out and brushes his ink-stained hand over her shoulder. Today she’s wearing a pretty pale pink _jeogori_ , the blouse part of her hanbok, paired with a dark blue _chima_ , or skirt. It’s a nice colour combination, albeit marred now that there’s a handprint of ink bleeding into her shoulder—although it’s worth it for the way that she shrieks and retreats, sticking her lower lip out in a pout. It’s not genuine—Wonshik knows that, at least—so he just turns back to his work, lifting the page out of the dripping pool of ink.

“You’re the worst husband ever,” she groans melodramatically, sliding closer to him once more.

She knows that physical closeness with others unnerves him—always has—and she loves pushing his buttons. If he tells her to move away, she will, of course; he rarely does, because after this long her touch doesn’t unnerve him as much as anyone else. Right now he just sighs and turns to look at her again. “Do you want more ink? Is that it? I can pour some in your hair, if you’d like.”

With that, she squeals and backs away, hand fluttering upward to check that her hairstyle—impeccable as per usual—is still presentable. He does adore her theatrics, sometimes, but right now he really does need to study. He won’t be the youngest to pass the civil service exams (he’s already eighteen, and the youngest to pass was seventeen), but he wants to be one of the youngest, and her distractions aren’t really helping. “No offence, Taehee noona, but could you go somewhere else? I need to finish learning these characters by tonight.”

“Fine,” she sighs, getting to her feet and tugging at the ribbon of her jeogori. Wonshik averts his eyes just in time as she yanks it off and dangles it over his head; he’s seen her body here and there, because she is comfortable getting changed in front of him now, but it still makes him feel prickly all over and not in a nice way. He can’t even imagine the insults from their peers if any of them were to find out. Young, upper-class men aren’t meant to be like this. They’re meant to be virile, apparently, although Wonshik cannot relate and doesn’t try to. But Taehee hasn’t breathed a word of his secret to anyone, not even her servants—as far as everyone is concerned, one or both of them is infertile, and that is such a curse that no one dares speak of it when she is in the room. For her part, Taehee doesn’t seem particularly concerned that her husband rarely touches her beyond gentle, platonic hugs here and there. Court life is interesting enough for her. “As I said, worst husband ever.”

“I wish I hadn’t named you ‘greatest happiness’,” he mutters in return, and laughs when she drops the jeogori on his head and stomps away—presumably down the hall towards her sleeping quarters, although he hopes for her sake she doesn’t encounter any of the slaves on the way. It’s certainly not the done thing, for her to be flouncing around her own house in her undergarments, but she has never really cared for the done thing.

//

He studies well into the night, lighting candle after candle and hunching over the paper until his back starts to hurt and he knows he must stop. He normally doesn’t mind studying, but when it’s studying to join the King’s court it’s an entirely different experience and one he isn’t used to. He knows what his father would say— _if you can’t make it through the exams, how do you expect to make it at court?_ —and silently thanks every god he knows that he does not live in that house anymore.

“Mistress Taehee,” a servant calls quietly from outside the door, startling him out of his reverie.

“Come in,” he mutters, putting down his pen and chewing on his lip.

She enters silently. Like this, dressed in nothing but her plain white sleeping clothes and with her hair out, she almost looks like a different person, and Wonshik smiles tiredly at her as she sits down across from him, placing the cups and pot of tea she had in her hands on the floor. He just watches as she pours him a cup and hands it to him, waiting for him to take a sip before turning away to do the same, adhering to their societal rules even when there’s nothing but the two of them because it’s been beaten into the two of them so. “I’m worried about you,” she murmurs, and this is how Wonshik _knows_ she is a different person. “I have never seen you this tired before.”

“I’ll survive,” he offers, because he will.

She falls silent at that, finishing her tea and waiting for Wonshik to finish his before pouring him another cup. “Do you ever wonder how you will cope at court?” she says eventually, and it’s clear she is choosing her words delicately. “I… I know you are very intelligent. I am not worried about that. I _am_ worried about the… politics of court.” She smiles wryly, tucking her hair behind her ear, and Wonshik just watches silently. “I don’t think either of us are prepared for all the drama that court brings.”

“What else can I do?” he hunches over a little more, clutching his cup close to his face like it can offer comfort. “I don’t think I would suit the military—all that killing… All those wars.” He shudders. “Going to court is all that I’ve been preparing for since I learnt my own name. I don’t have a choice.”

“As it is with so many of these things,” she replies, and not for the first time Wonshik detects a note of melancholy in her tone.

What would she be doing, if she wasn’t trapped in this marriage? Who would she be if she had a husband who loved her like she deserved, who gave her children and a purpose? Who would _he_ be? Does it even matter, musing on these hypotheticals, since what’s done is done and they are who they are? When he’s this tired, and when she looks this sad, he doesn’t know if his life is even really his.

She can’t read his mind, but after so long she can tell how he’s feeling, and when she slides closer and gently plucks the cup from his hands he lets her. He lets her tilt his head up so she can kiss him, softly and gently, a kiss that says she’s sorry. Wonshik doesn’t know what she’s sorry for, doesn’t know why he feels like he has to say sorry too, so he just closes his eyes and resists the urge to cry. “Come on,” she murmurs softly, tone so full of affection it nearly hurts to hear. “It’s late enough. Studying can wait until tomorrow.”

He doesn’t protest as she reaches up and undoes his hair from his _sangtu_ , the hairstyle he wears, letting it fall down around his ears. He closes his eyes as she runs her fingers through it, and keeps them closed as she takes his hand and leads him towards bed, pushing him gently down and arranging the covers just-so around him. She doesn’t crawl into bed with him—some nights he tolerates her holding him close, but tonight he’s too turbulent—but she holds his hand, her thumb stroking his knuckles, and Wonshik wonders how he got so lucky.

“I’m sorry I can’t love you,” he whispers as he’s drifting off into sleep, his sorrow choking the words from him. “The way you deserve to be loved, I mean.”

Her eyes glitter at him through the darkness, and when she kisses the back of his hand he sighs softly. “This is enough,” she breathes, and it’s a weight off his chest. “You are enough.”

He desperately wishes that was true.

 

 _Friday 14th December 1917_  
“Have you heard anything from your friend?”

Ordinarily, such a sentence would not make Wonshik jump and bang his knees on his desk—but when it’s a sentence that starts in a male voice and ends in a female voice, Hakyeon having shapeshifted halfway through… Well, that’s cause enough to give him a fright, and he glares balefully at Hakyeon. Or the girl who used to be Hakyeon, who still is Hakyeon. “Would you stop calling him that? He has a name, you know,” he complains, dipping his pen in his inkwell carefully. “And yes, I have. We’re going out later.”

The girl—Wonshik knows it’s Hakyeon, of course, but when he’s in female form he normally goes by the name Songi, which is his old gisaeng name—whirls around, her long hair cascading behind her, and narrows her eyes. “You’re going out? You didn’t tell me that.”

“And why would I?” Wonshik lowerers his head back to the page as Hakyeon-as-Songi flits about the room, gathering her makeup supplies before settling in front of the mirror. She can just shapeshift the makeup on, of course, and sometimes she does; most of the time she prefers to do it herself, says she likes the routine. Wonshik doesn’t try and understand.

“Because,” Songi says eventually as she’s pressing powder into her face, “I’ve seen you make friends with a mortal exactly once. And you ate him!”

Wonshik sniffs. “There were extenuating circumstances. And I didn’t _eat_ him. I just sipped. I glamoured him afterwards, anyway. _And_ I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend.”

That mortal had been entertaining enough, but nothing special—Ah Wen, his name was, and he’d been one of their servants when they spent time in China. He was intelligent, and bright, and knew how to read. He and Wonshik would play chess and read literature, and it had been an entertaining enough time while Hakyeon fucked his way through every city they stayed in, sometimes as Hakyeon but most of the time as Songi. The slip-up had been such a cliche: Wonshik hadn’t fed for a while, and Ah Wen cut himself while making dinner. Hongbin’s different from that, Wonshik can tell, but he is still figuring out how.

“Uh-huh,” Songi drawls, the derision dripping from her voice as sweet as honey. “And what are you doing tonight with Hongbin? Going to church? Sounds like a cute date.”

The urge to throw something at her head is unbelievable, but Wonshik refrains, clenching his fingers on the edge of the table instead. That backfires, because he tears through the wood of the table like it was paper, leaving a hand-shaped hole. Oops. “Believe it or not, he has linguistics questions for me.”

“Why doesn’t he go to university?”

The university that Wonshik teaches at, with its attached high school, is a women’s university, so while Hongbin couldn’t study _there_ he could study at _a_ university if he so desired. He certainly seems bright enough. But Wonshik just shrugs. “Perhaps he didn’t want to take a Japanese name? I haven’t asked. It seems rather personal.”

Songi looks at him through the mirror as she’s painting her lips a startling slash of crimson, and raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I see. So you’re close enough that you’re going out on linguistics dates, but not close enough to ask him why he’s using you as a tutor instead of learning properly.”

This time, Wonshik _does_ throw something at her—and given that it’s the first thing in his hand, the chunk of wood from the table, it’s a good job her immortal reflexes kick in and she ducks just in time. “Fuck off,” he grunts, turning back to his paper sulkily. “I’m allowed to have friends.”

“Of course you are!” She isn’t even looking at him, now; she’s too busy preening in the mirror. The form that Hakyeon has chosen tonight is tall and willowy with a dancer’s grace (that never seems to go away no matter what form he shifts into) and long, arrow-straight black hair that compliments her delicate facial features. She’s beautiful, but there’s something about the expression that she wears that gives Wonshik the impression she could kill him. He loves that about Songi, loves how she always has an edge, no matter what delicate and feminine form she appears in. “I’m just not used to it. You’re a lone wolf.”

They both wince at the phrasing, and Wonshik shrugs. “Maybe being a lone wolf is getting old. Maybe I want some company.”

A long pause. “That’s what I’m for!” Songi says brightly, spraying perfume on herself before rising to her feet and shapeshifting into clothes.

Tonight she’s wearing a western style dress, crimson just like her lipstick, and her hair is pinned in delicate waves close to her head. The dress, although long-sleeved and ankle length, is cut a little too low in the front to be decent; not even low enough to show cleavage, just décolletage, but it’s clear that this is not a dress for a well-to-do woman. Most likely Songi will find her way to an army base and have her way with some of the soldiers; it’s what she does a lot recently, because it’s easy for her to feed that way. Wonshik wishes it didn’t have to be like this—Hakyeon hunts best when he’s Hakyeon, not Songi—but he nods. “Don’t forget a hat,” he adds, because he learned precious little about women’s fashion from their time in Europe, but he certainly remembers that rule.

He hears the heartbeat at the door before Songi does, and springs up to open it before she can even attempt to. He hadn’t expected her to still be here, and he hadn’t expected Hongbin to be this early—it’s only nine, but they’d arranged for nine-thirty. “Hello,” he says courteously as he swings the door open. Sure enough, it’s Hongbin standing on the doorstep, books in his arms and a rather nervous expression on his face. “You’re early.”

“I got lost,” Hongbin says, and Wonshik raises an eyebrow. “And—”

Before he can even explain how in the hell him getting lost ended up in him turning up half an hour early, Songi appears over Wonshik’s shoulder, adjusting her dress and draping a slender arm over Wonshik’s shoulder. “Tatsuru?” she says to Wonshik, the question in her voice evident. “Who’s this?”

Hongbin’s eyes go wide, and he takes a step back, flustered. “I didn’t realise you had company, hyung,” he says, and Wonshik can see him inspecting Songi carefully.

“I didn’t.” Wonshik unwraps Songi’s arm from around his shoulders and steps back. “Songi was just leaving.”

Songi is damn lucky Wonshik doesn’t kick the door shut and punch her through a wall, and she knows it; she bats her eyelashes at him and smiles demurely like butter couldn’t melt in her mouth. It’s so, so infuriating, and so, so Hakyeon, and there’s absolutely nothing Wonshik can do about it. “As you say,” she murmurs, and turns around to gather (shapeshift) her purse and fan. As she leaves she brushes up against Hongbin very deliberately, trailing the end of her fan across his cheek, and Wonshik grits his teeth.

Hongbin watches her go, but it’s not a sexual gaze; it looks like he’s trying to puzzle something together, and Wonshik’s heart sinks. Of _course_. Her aura. It would be the exact same as Hakyeon’s, and what Hakyeon had intended to be an innocent practical joke might just have consequences more serious than he could have imagined. Things aren’t really adding up for Hongbin, Wonshik can tell; from their somewhat limited interactions in the church basement, he can gather that Hongbin just thinks they are human, but different. Whether that’s because he is naive and doesn’t know that there are creatures other than humans walking amongst them, or because he’s in denial and doesn’t want to believe, Wonshik can’t tell—but he does not want to test those limits. He doesn’t befriend mortals because their reactions to finding out that they have a vampire in their midst are rarely friendly. He actually likes Hongbin, and finds him curious; he doesn’t want to ruin it now by broadening his horizons, even inadvertently.

“Shall we go?” he asks, and Hongbin turns back to him, still puzzled. “Where did you want to study?”

“Er,” Hongbin says, and in the process of adjusting his books nearly drops one. It takes everything in Wonshik to stand stock-still and not catch the book, because if he does he knows he’ll move too damn fast and give the game away. _Shit_. This is harder than he thought. “I haven’t eaten, but I don’t know any places around here that do good food.” He has a point. Wonshik’s neighbourhood isn’t exactly overflowing with restaurants. “So, uh, I was wondering if I could study here?”

Wonshik blinks. “And eat here, too?”

Hongbin must realise that his proposition is far too much considering they are, essentially, still acquaintances, and he flushes. “Nevermind,” he blurts, taking a step backwards. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

For a moment, Wonshik considers letting him go—it’s not like they have much food in the house, anyway, considering he can’t eat and Hakyeon’s appetite is slowly decreasing as he gets older (he doesn’t need to eat, but says he likes the routine of that too). He doesn’t really know Hongbin well, all things considered. It would be the smart thing, the acceptable thing, to turn him away and offer to take him out to eat somewhere… and yet, and yet, Wonshik sighs and stands aside. “Come in. I can’t promise I have much,” he warns, “but whatever I have you’re welcome to.”

He silently pats himself on the back for having the foresight to tidy up their little house. It’s miniscule—just one big room that serves as the living room, dining room, and bedroom, with the kitchen off to one side and the bathroom through a door at the back—but it’s home, and while at first he’d hated it he’s sort of used to it now. He hadn’t had the idea to pull off the curtains covering the windows, so Hongbin blinks at them and shrugs off his coat as Wonshik sidesteps around him and slides Hakyeon’s makeup over into a corner with his foot. “You’re in luck,” he muses out loud as he stalks over to the kitchen, gesturing to a plate that Hakyeon had put aside. “Hakyeon made this before he left. He won’t miss it. Go on, sit down.”

Obediently, Hongbin folds himself on the floor in front of the little desk that doubles as a table, and Wonshik can see him discreetly angling his head so he can see what Wonshik was working on. It’s nothing interesting—just the beginning of the third article he’s writing for the newspaper—but he bites back a smile as he arranges the kimbap on the plate, trying to make it look nice and failing. It doesn’t help that it doesn’t look all that great in the first place. He’s lucky he can even do this without feeling sick—for the first fifty years of his immortal life, he couldn’t go near food or watch people eating without wanting to retch, an absurd action since the last time he ate was the night he was turned (interestingly, he can still drink liquids; most of the time he refrains, but they don’t give him the same violent reaction that food does). He still can’t eat food, of course, but it doesn’t bother him anymore.

He really _is_ getting old.

“It’s fresh, but I don’t know how good it is,” he says as he places the plate in front of Hongbin and hands him chopsticks. “You know who to talk to if it makes you sick.”

Hongbin smiles wryly. “I will. And thanks. You’re not eating?”

“I ate earlier,” he lies, averting his eyes—just because food doesn’t bother him doesn’t mean he is going to sit there and watch Hongbin eat—to gather his papers.

They sit in silence for a while as Hongbin eats and Wonshik reads over his material. It’s not an awkward silence, to his surprise. It’s a comfortable one, not unlike the ones he has with Hakyeon when they’re both doing their own thing, together but seperate, which he’s pleasantly surprised by. He’s not used to feeling at home with anyone except Hakyeon—and even then, that had taken a few decades. This is natural and easy, which is odd because he has only known Hongbin for a month and they really haven’t spoken much beyond their tasks at the church. Oh, that reminds him—

“How are things going? With the newspaper, I mean,” he blurts suddenly, making Hongbin jump, the chopsticks taking a dive from his hand towards the table. Wonshik catches them before they can clatter onto the surface, and smoothly presses them back into Hongbin’s hand. The movement would all have happened faster than Hongbin could see, but Wonshik turns his head back to his paper like nothing at all has happened—even though internally he’s screaming. He’s so used to picking up after Hakyeon (who isn’t so much clumsy but rather just careless) that that had been an instinct, one he couldn’t suppress. That worries him. What other instincts is he unable to control?

Hongbin just stares at Wonshik for a long, long moment. It stretches on forever, and Wonshik doesn’t have to be a mind reader to hear Hongbin’s thoughts—he’s wondering if what just happened really happened, or if he imagined it, and he’s also probably scared of Wonshik’s reaction if he brings it up. “Not good,” he says eventually, his tone so guarded Wonshik nearly flinches away from him. “Seongkwon hyung wants to launch it after the lunar new year.”

“Late January?” Wonshik replies incredulously. “Over a month away?”

“Yeah. He’s having trouble getting staff, for obvious reasons. And everyone is busy over the holidays.” Hongbin sighs and stuffs the last piece of kimbap in his mouth.

The silence falls again, although this time it’s considerably more strained. Wonshik could kick himself; how could he be worried about Hakyeon ruining things when he had completely underestimated himself? He’s been vampire for so long that he’s forgotten what it’s like to be mortal completely, and now that he’s having to perform under scrutiny he finds the pressure is almost suffocating. He turns back to his papers, but the characters swim and muddle together in his vision, and the bitter taste in his mouth prevents him from focusing on anything but Hongbin’s heartbeat, slow and steady in his ears. At least he isn’t afraid of Wonshik. That’s a small consolation.

“Why didn’t you eat at home?” asks Wonshik after the silence has become too weighty for him to stand it any longer. And, to be honest, he’s curious; it’s late enough that mortals should have eaten already. Or maybe things have changed? It’s not something he pays attention to.

To his surprise, though, Hongbin flushes and dips his head. All Wonshik can see is the crown of his head, and it’s somewhat endearing. “Ah,” he murmurs, and it’s a sound of unsurety. “I wasn’t hungry until I was nearly here.”

That’s a lie. It’s unsure, and it’s weak, but it’s a lie, and Wonshik presses his lips in a thin line. There’s a story there, but he’s not sure he wants to know it, even if it is his place to hear (which it’s not). He’s been lecturing Hakyeon about forming attachments for centuries now, and here he is, doing just that with a slightly awkward mortal who endears himself to Wonshik more with each passing minute. That realisation hits him at once, and he has to will himself not to react—he cares about Hongbin in the way that friends do, and that is not something he has felt for a very, very long time. Huh. He didn’t even think he was capable about caring about anything but Hakyeon and surviving and the next feed, but here he is.

“I see,” he replies smoothly, deciding to leave it. Let Hongbin open up when—or if—he’s ready. It’s none of his business, anyway. “What questions did you have for me?”

It’s not much of a segue, but Hongbin seems relieved to change the subject, and his face brightens as he reaches for his books. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about Middle Korean,” he starts, and Wonshik brightens. That’s his specialty.

They work for hours, although it doesn’t feel like long at all—when Hongbin’s in his element, unfettered by awkwardness or doubt, they get along like a house on fire. Wonshik is able to impress Hongbin with his technical knowledge (he particularly enjoys hearing all the slang used back then), and Hongbin constantly amazes Wonshik with new insights that he is simply unable to come up with on his own, considering he is essentially frozen in time with a fifteenth century mindset. After they’ve gone through a good eight chapters in Hongbin’s textbook, they move on to the article that Wonshik was writing, and write a couple of paragraphs together.

It’s _fun_. Wonshik’s kind of forgotten what that was like, if he’s being honest with himself. Europe had been fun for a while, but the perks of the lifestyle had worn thin for him very fast. This, here in his home country with someone who speaks the same language as him, is comforting in a very odd way, but he doesn’t question it. He and Hongbin find each other smiling widely at each other across the table more than once, and towards the end of the night they’re halfway to finishing each other’s sentences. Part of Wonshik is still apprehensive—after all, Hongbin _knows_ he’s different—but the rest of him drowns it out. Hakyeon is great company, of course, but his passion lies in dance, not in linguistics, and in this they have never related. Hongbin is like a breath of fresh air.

“What’s the time?” Hongbin mutters some time later. He’s lying on the floor, a hand flung over his eyes like he’s just run a marathon, and Wonshik raises an eyebrow.

He doesn’t even have to look at a watch—doesn’t wear one, since he has an innate sense of time that’s accurate to the second, as all immortals do—and so replies instantly. “12:06 am,” he says, and narrows his eyes in the direction of the door. Hakyeon probably won’t be home any time soon. He often stays out until dawn on feeding nights. “The trams have stopped. Do you want me to walk you home?”

“Like a date?” Hongbin replies, but his tone is light and after a second Wonshik realises he’s teasing. “Are you gonna kiss me goodbye at the door, too? Hyung, I never pegged you for a romantic.”

Wonshik just rolls his eyes and gets to his feet, bending over to stretch his back as he does so. “In your dreams,” he says easily, although perhaps he isn’t the object of Hongbin’s desire. He’s seen the way Hongbin looks at Hakyeon, can hear how his heart races around him, can smell the arousal rolling off him in waves. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.

When they finally make their way out of the little house and into the street—Hongbin had protested weakly, but Wonshik had insisted, for reasons that he can’t explain to mortal ears—it’s started to snow, and belatedly Wonshik realises he hadn’t even thought to bring a coat. The cold doesn’t bother him, but it’s important to keep up appearances, although even that is starting to wear thin when he knows Hongbin knows he’s different. He feels Hongbin’s curious eyes on him as he ambles down the road, wordlessly taking the directions Hongbin points, and the hairs on the back of his neck rise before Hongbin even speaks.

“What are you?”

A vampire. A linguist. Cold. A friend. Scared. None of those answers are appropriate, and none are ones he can give to Hongbin, although he aches to. The truth has never chafed him like this. It’s foreign and he doesn’t like it.

He hangs his head and doesn’t answer.

//

He wakes to Songi bending over him, her hair trailing across his face, and when she breathes out Wonshik can smell she’s drunk. It’s past dawn, just, so he’s groggy and out of it, and groans loudly when she slides a hand down his arm. “Your boyfriend leave?” she slurs, teasing. Or Wonshik would ordinarily put it down to teasing. Tonight there’s an edge to her voice, something akin to bitterness or—or _jealousy_ , and that gets Wonshik’s hackles rising.

“Fuck off,” Wonshik instantly snaps, his fangs sliding out instantly as he bares them at her.

She takes a step back, and as she does, shifts back into Hakyeon—but the expression she was wearing, one of shock, transfers onto his familiar face and Wonshik instantly feels guilty. “Hyung,” Hakyeon whispers, “don’t snap at me. I was just teasing.”

“I know.” Sleep is calling to him desperately, but he forces himself to stay awake long enough to retract his fangs and reposition himself on his side. “Sorry. Sleepy.”

Hakyeon’s voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater as Wonshik lets go to drift back into sleep. “It’s okay,” he says, but he sounds very small and far away.


	4. four

_14th March 1440_  
It’s late when Wonshik finally staggers home, his back and hands aching terribly, his head pounding with the onset of a headache that promises to hurt just as much as the rest of him. He’d known that being at court would be hard, of course; he’d been prepared for that. He hadn’t been prepared for the amount of work dumped on him, or the ridicule from his colleagues, or the way the King’s eyes scan past him like he isn’t even there. He hadn’t been prepared for the long days and longer nights; he hadn’t been prepared for the isolation; and he most certainly hadn’t been prepared for feeling like an idiot every time they’re summoned before the King. Right now he just wants to get into bed and sleep for a week, although, realistically, the chances of that happening are very low. He’ll have to settle for a few hours of stolen sleep instead.

The slave who greets him at the door is a young man, a teenager if Wonshik remembers correctly, and his eyes widen almost imperceptibly when he realises who it is. That should be the first thing that clues him into the fact that something’s off, and ordinarily he’d notice something like that—but right now he’s struggling to stay awake, and thinks nothing of it.

“Master,” the slave calls right before Wonshik goes to enter the main room of the house, and his voice is guarded. “The mistress Taehee—”

Wonshik doesn’t wait to hear what the slave has to say about whatever Taehee’s done. Quite frankly, he’s too tired to care; he barely sees her these days, and when he does their exchanges are brief and stilted. He’s always too tired to make much more than polite conversation. It’s only until he puts his hands on the sliding doors to open them that he realises he can hear voices through the paper, two of them, and that piques his curiosity.

Whatever he was expecting to see when he slid open the door, it’s certainly not the scene that greets him: Taehee, dressed in one of her best hanbok but with her _hair out_ , is sitting delicately on the floor across from a male figure who turns at Wonshik’s entrance, his expression morphing into one of horror. There’s cups of tea on the low table in front of them, a few plates of sweets, and Wonshik sees red.

“Who the hell are you?” he says coldly as the man scrambles into a bow, his nose brushing the floor. Wonshik resists the urge to stomp on the back of his head, and while, ordinarily, he’d be shocked at such violent thoughts right now they just feel right.

Taehee scrambles to her feet, clutching her hands close to her chest like she’s not really sure what to do. “This is Dongjoo,” she blurts, and Wonshik eyes him like he’s shit off the bottom of his shoe. “We were just talking.”

“Just talking,” Wonshik deadpans in reply, his eyes flicking between her and this stranger. They’re both dressed, and dressed impeccably—and considering he knows for a fact Taehee’s been dressed by others since she was a child and probably barely knows how to tie the strings on her jeogori, that’s a pretty big clue that whatever went on here happened above clothes, if anything even _did_ happen. But her hair… “Really, dearest wife?”

“I swear it,” Dongjoo says, rising from his bow but not getting to his feet. “I apologise if we shocked you. Taehee has told me many great things about you.”

Wonshik eyes him suspiciously. He’s around the same age as Wonshik, perhaps a year or two younger, with bright eyes and a mouth that probably turns charming if he smiles. His hair is pulled up into a somewhat messy sangtu, and the _manggeon_ around his head is brand-new, by the looks of it. The hanbok he is wearing is fine enough, but slightly ratty around the edges; this man is middle class, not _yangban_ like them, and Wonshik wonders where on earth Taehee found him. “Get out of my house,” he mutters under his breath, folding his arms and standing aside so Dongjoo can do just that.

He doesn’t speak to Taehee as he pulls off his _sangtugwan_ , the hairpiece he wears, and undoes his hair, letting it fall around his face, loosening the string of his jeogori before pulling it off entirely. He wishes this could have happened on any other night, one where he’s not so exhausted that the urge to fall into bed nearly overpowers him, but instead he turns back to her and finds her almost folding in on herself with guilt. “Who is he really?”

“We didn’t—” she starts, before cutting herself off at the murderous look on Wonshik’s face. “I ran into him at the markets. Quite literally ran into him. He works in one of the shops selling jewellery.” Absentmindedly, she touches the crown of her head; ordinarily she’d be wearing a hairpin, but as her hair is loose, there’s nothing there. “Believe it or not, he’s very intelligent, and he has a great sense of humour. He can read, too. I’ve been showing him my favourite poetry.”

Wonshik lets that settle in his stomach, and when it does it leaves a strange bitter taste in his mouth that somehow colours the words he speaks. “Do you love him?” he asks, and his voice is surprisingly even.

“Of course not.” She shakes her head. “He’s fun, but I most certainly don’t love him.”

At once, Wonshik identifies the funny feeling in his stomach, the one that has his shoulders hunching. It’s an unfamiliar one, but one he has a name for nonetheless—it’s jealousy, as plain as day, and he hates that he’s even feeling it. He hates that he’s even _acknowledging_ it. It’s so completely unbecoming, because what is there to be jealous of? He loves Taehee, but he’s not in love with her. He’s known this for years. Why on earth would he get possessive now?

“You just want to have tea with him in my house,” he replies, completely deadpan. “Late at night. While I’m still working. Behind my back.”

At that she snaps, as he’d been expecting her to at some point or another; the fire in her eyes transforms her face into something otherworldly, and Wonshik would feel scared of her if she didn’t come up to his shoulders. “And what was I meant to ask? ‘Hello dear husband, I love you very much, but I’m an adult woman with needs and I’m getting very lonely at court since all these other idiots talk about is their husbands, so is it alright for you if I take a lover?’ I don’t think so.” She flushes when the words are out, considering they are essentially a confession, but Wonshik’s mind is moving too fast to really focus on that.

“You’re dismissed,” he says eventually, turning to his bed and toeing back the covers. His voice is cold, and ordinarily he’d hate to speak to her like this, but he genuinely needs sleep. This argument is too draining to continue with.

For a moment she pauses in the doorway, and when Wonshik turns to look at her he thinks she’s going to say something—but then she’s gone, slamming the doors shut behind her with a snap, leaving nothing behind but her delicate scent and the heavy pangs of regret in Wonshik’s stomach.

//

He waits for her all next morning, kneeling on the floor in the room she’s chosen as her own, down the other end of the house where the female slaves reside. They aren’t used to his presence, he can tell; after depositing him in the room, they leave him to his own devices, not quite sure what to do with him. That is fine. It gives him a chance to work on some important paperwork he’d brought home, as well as wander around the room and touch her things, her poetry books and needlework and jewellery.

“Mistress Taehee,” a call comes from the door, and he startles back to himself.

She steps inside, already pulling the pins from her hair, and jumps when she sees him. “Wonshik!” she blurts, before remembering she’s meant to be mad at him and glowering instead. “Husband. What are you doing here?”

“Sit,” he orders gently, gesturing to the floor in front of him.

Obediently, she does, settling herself down and arranging her skirts around her just-so. He doesn’t know where she was this morning, and finds that he doesn’t particularly care; he has had all morning to stew on their argument, and has come to the most logical conclusion available. “I apologise for losing my temper yesterday,” he says stiffly, watching her face carefully. Her look changes from blank to surprised before she manages to smooth her features into a blank mask again, and he takes that as a good sign. “I was not expecting to come home and find… that. But I don’t have an issue with you taking a lover.” At this, he looks away, fixing his eyes at a spot on the wall and trying to tamp down the blush that rises on his cheeks. “I won’t force you to live the kind of lifestyle I prefer, and if… carnal desires… are what you are yearning for, I won’t deny you that. I do not even mind if you find love, since we have never had that between us.” He takes a deep breath in, and realises his hands are shaking. “But… don’t leave me?”

It’s the most vulnerable he’s ever been, and he hates baring his soul like this. He’s never done it before, he’s never shown her just how much he needs her; even though he does not love her in the way he should, he _does_ love her, and she has been by his side for so long that he cannot picture himself without her. She is the one person who understands him, completely and totally, and it is this that has him squeezing his eyes shut so he can’t look at her. He is twenty now—a man in every way—but he feels thirteen all over again, disarmed by her.

“Oh, Wonshik,” she murmurs, and her voice is full of such affection he nearly swallows his tongue. There’s a shifting of fabric, a rustling of silk, and then she’s leaning against him, putting her arms around him and dragging him into a gentle embrace. “I won’t leave you. There is love between us, just not the kind of love married couples ordinarily have for each other. But that doesn’t make it any less genuine.”

He opens his eyes then and finds that one of her hairpins is alarmingly close to his face and has to resist the urge to flinch away. “We have never really done anything we were supposed to, have we?” he replies quietly, sliding his arms around her waist and tugging her even closer. Her scent is sweet and familiar, and he relaxes and lets his shoulders drop. “This is nothing new.”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she whispers, and when he feels her lips on his neck, a kiss of forgiveness, he knows that they will be alright.

 

 _27th January 1918_  
New Year’s is always a particularly melancholy time for the two of them, but for some reason this year the pain seems to be amplified. Perhaps it’s because it is their first new year after being out of the country for close to a century; perhaps it’s because the general mood of the populace is most definitely pensive, to say the least; perhaps it’s because it’s quite a harsh winter, and most everyone stays inside or travels away to see their family. The only people Hakyeon and Wonshik have ever been close to have turned to dust in their graves by now, so they have no one but each other for company. They are both vaguely miserable.

“You need a haircut,” Hakyeon muses sleepily.

They’re both in bed, even though it’s the middle of the night—the middle of the day for them—and they have nothing to do. Hakyeon has burrowed closer so he’s sort of lying on Wonshik’s chest, one arm flung loosely across his waist, and Wonshik tolerates it because he knows how much the new year depresses Hakyeon.

“Do I?” he mumbles, opening his eyes to find Hakyeon peering up at him. “I haven’t looked at myself.”

His hair grows at an alarmingly fast rate, faster than mortal hair. If he leaves it to its own devices, it will return to the length it was at when he was turned in less than a month—no mean feat, considering it was nearly down to his nipples back then. Hakyeon has to give him semi-regular haircuts (when long hair went out of fashion Wonshik insisted he learn) or else he starts to look like he’s just stepped out of a time capsule, and that’s not really something he wants his colleagues at the university to figure out. But the university is closed, and he’s only needed to leave the house to feed—even Seongkwon had closed the church basement for the holiday period—so he’s sure it’s back to how it originally was. He does not even have the energy to care.

“Yeah,” Hakyeon says, winding his hand in Wonshik’s hair and giving it a sharp tug. “Come on. This is ridiculous.”

He lets Hakyeon haul him out of bed and position him, cross legged, in front of the mirror, resisting the urge to slouch as Hakyeon digs out his comb and scissors to kneel behind him. He barely recognises himself, and he hates that he does; for the first two hundred years of his vampire existence, this is the sight that he got used to—a twenty-three year old man with long hair and red eyes and sharp fangs, a world-weariness that did not belong on his face. He avoided looking in mirrors back then for a reason. He did not need to be reminded of all the ways he’d changed or, worse, all the ways he’d stayed the same.

“Do you ever miss it?”

He puts his absurd question down to the new year’s melancholy and nothing more, because ordinarily he wouldn’t even bother to ask such a thing. But when he opens his eyes to see Hakyeon has shifted on long hair, too, they exchange wry smiles. “You know? Sometimes. I never used to wear my hair loose, like you did, or up in… sangtu. That was for noblemen, and I was not a nobleman. I always wore wigs. But long hair was easier to style, and it looks better when I dance.” He cocks his head in the mirror and considers, and shifts his hair a few inches shorter, just below his collarbones. “This is the length I used to wear it at. You liked yours long.”

“It was the fashion,” Wonshik replies. “I’m glad I didn’t grow a mustache like many of my contemporaries. That would have been a nightmare.”

Hakyeon snorts under his breath as he slices through a huge chunk of Wonshik’s hair. Out of the corner of his eye Wonshik watches it fall to the floor and feels a little bit more like himself. “That would have been hilarious,” he mumbles, and then yelps when Wonshik reaches around to smack him on the leg.

When Wonshik’s hair is close-cropped again, parted on the side and smoothed over so he looks scholarly and every part a university professor, he feels a little more at ease—even though he’s sitting in a pile of his own hair and his entire back itches. “Thanks,” he calls over his shoulder as he gets up and stretches, making his way towards the bath.

“You’re welcome,” Hakyeon replies absentmindedly as he gets up and grabs the broom. “Hey, hyung, what would happen if you got a tattoo? Would it stay, or would you… heal it out?” He squints, and when Wonshik looks over his shoulder he sees that not only has Hakyeon shifted his hair back to its normal length—slightly longer than Wonshik’s own, and slightly more unkempt—he’s also littered with tattoos up and down his arms, intricate designs like the kind they saw in Europe.

It’s very rare that Wonshik finds he doesn’t know the question to an answer about his immortal capabilities, but he finds that as he sits on the edge of the bath and waits for it to fill up (they’re lucky the pipes haven’t frozen, but as it is the hot water takes an age to come through and as such Wonshik just usually bathes in the near-freezing water) he realises he has no idea. “I don’t know,” he confesses, but holds up a hand when he sees Hakyeon’s face light up. “But don’t get any ideas. I don’t want a tattoo.”

“Hyung,” Hakyeon whines, and Wonshik rolls his eyes. “You’re boring.”

An argument as old as time, and one they will have for centuries to come, he’s sure; tonight it doesn’t annoy him, though. Tonight it’s a somewhat comforting reminder of just how much things cannot and will not change for them—and right now, when he is painfully aware of just how much he has left behind and how fast the mortal world moves on around them, that is exactly what he needs.

 

 _11th February 1918_  
Sometimes, when Wonshik overfeeds—something he doesn’t do too often, considering he doesn’t need much these days—he gets almost… drunk. Hakyeon likes to call it blood-drunk, and he supposes that’s an accurate descriptor; he doesn’t drink much anymore, but it’s a similar sort of feeling.

He is heading home like this, so full he’s sloshing and giggling at nothing, when he rounds the corner to see someone lurking on his front step. Even as tipsy as he is, nothing can dull his instincts, and before he can temper himself his fangs slide out instantly and he starts hunching over, animalistic, primal. Hakyeon—no. This person is waiting, and he has something clutched in his hand, and when Wonshik takes a step closer he can hear the heartbeat, warm and vaguely familiar but not Hakyeon’s. Who—

“Wonshik hyung?” the figure calls when he turns to see Wonshik standing there, appearing to be hunched over against the cold.

Hurriedly, Wonshik retracts his fangs and attempts a smile, hoping there’s no blood on him anywhere as Hongbin ambles over, his grin a mile wide. “What are you doing here?” he asks, trying to sound as sober as possible.

Hongbin narrows his eyes slightly—with how perceptive he is, Wonshik wouldn’t be surprised to find out he can tell that Wonshik’s state of perception is altered—but shoves the thing in his hand at him, still grinning. “Look!”

At first, Wonshik doesn’t know what he’s looking at. It’s a large piece of paper—several of them, actually—but the letters swim for a second before rearranging themselves into characters that make sense. _The Independent_ , the title reads. _Vol 1, Edition 1, February 1918_. “Oh my god!” he blurts, shaking the newspaper a little. He meets Hongbin’s eyes and smiles, not caring that he’s still slightly drunk and acting ridiculous. “We—oh my god!”

He can’t really put into words what it means to be holding a newspaper, printed in Korean, all about the independence movement—and when he opens it and sees his article printed there (they’d all had to choose pseudonyms, for obvious reasons; Wonshik had chosen ‘The Linguist’) his heart swells with a weird sort of pride, a pride he hasn’t felt for centuries. “My article is just after yours,” Hongbin’s saying, babbling away happily. “Seongkwon hyung said it would be best if we put them next to each other, since they’re sort of related. Hakyeon hyung’s is somewhere towards the back…”

Wonshik’s too busy staring at the newspaper like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen to realise that Hongbin’s teeth are chattering when he speaks, and there’s a pale pink blush colouring his cheeks; if Wonshik strains, he can practically see the blood blooming underneath his skin. “Come in,” he blurts, apropos of nothing and cutting Hongbin off mid-sentence. “I’ll get you some tea or something. It’s freezing out here.”

It’s a world away from the last time Hongbin was here, so he seems a little shocked at Wonshik’s proposal. “Are you sure?” he asks, guarded, and Wonshik nods furiously. “I don’t want to intrude. I just came to drop off the paper…”

“Shut up,” Wonshik says affectionately, “and come inside.”

Obediently, Hongbin does, and sighs the moment he steps inside the warmth of the little house, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it up neatly. Wonshik potters around the tiny kitchen, setting the tea to boil, and only realises he’s humming to himself when he catches Hongbin giving him a strange look out of the corner of his eye. If he’s lucky, this drunkenness will last for another hour at least; he is having more fun than he can remember having in recent times, and he’s not doing anything except bustling about his own house.

If Hongbin questions why Wonshik isn’t having tea, he keeps it to himself, and Wonshik is happy to sit there in a companionable silence as Hongbin drinks and he reads the paper from cover-to-cover, finishing it in record time and folding it neatly back up. “So,” he starts, realising that Hongbin’s gone through all the tea already. “What’s next? From here?”

At this, Hongbin brightens. “Well, Seongkwon hyung thinks that we should start off with fortnightly issues, and then round it up to a week if there’s a demand for it. It will be local at first, of course. No one wants to risk it transporting it cross-country. The first edition will be distributed tomorrow morning. He worked pretty hard over the holidays to get the machines ready to go.”

“Were you there with him?” It’s an innocent enough question, but Wonshik’s trying to probe, and he supposes he isn’t being very discreet about it. Hongbin, as charming and friendly as he is, is an enigma, and Wonshik doesn’t like enigmas. He wants to _know_ , and when he’s this tipsy he can’t be bothered with the bounds of propriety.

Hongbin shakes his head and reaches to pour himself a cup of tea, but Wonshik beats him to it, a ritual that’s oddly familiar. “No… I was at home.” He grimaces as he wraps both hands around his cup, and Wonshik raises an eyebrow. “Not my favourite place to be. I think I’m going to move out soon.”

That aside seems to slip out of its own accord, and Wonshik considers pressing, but the look on Hongbin’s face makes him reconsider. It’s not melancholy. It’s not even pensive. Hongbin looks pissed off, and even though it’s not directed at him it still makes Wonshik pause. He lets the moment pass as he turns that over in his mind and finds he doesn’t know what to say even if he did plan on saying anything. Hongbin is still an enigma, that’s for sure, but Wonshik doesn’t want to hurt his feelings by pouring salt into whatever invisible wounds he is wielding.

“So what got you interested in linguistics?” he says after a long, long silence, biting the inside of his cheek.

At that, Hongbin brightens; the return to a familiar topic is a welcome respite for both of them, and Wonshik relaxes as he prattles on about how he’d always been interested in languages and how that had interest had been sharpened when the authorities started tightening the noose around the language he adored so much. It’s warm, and it’s safe, and when Wonshik’s drunk like this—laughing loudly at a funny anecdote that Hongbin goes so far as to act out—he thinks that everything’s ok. He doesn’t feel vampire, and Hongbin doesn’t feel human. They’re just two beings, sitting and enjoying each other’s company, and that is something he didn’t even realise he missed.

 

 _26th February 1918_  
It’s not the first time Wonshik has had to chaperone Hakyeon on a night out—but as he slings Hakyeon’s arm around his shoulders to help keep him upright, he thinks it might just be the most boring. The bar Hakyeon had picked was on the other side of the city, so they’d caught three trams to get there only to find that, on a Monday, it was essentially dead, as Wonshik had insisted it would be. But Hakyeon is never one to listen to reason, which is why he insisted they stay, and why he’d slammed back drink after drink when it became clear he wouldn’t be able to feed, and which is why now, when they leave, he’s so drunk he can barely stay upright. Wonshik, for his part, had slouched in the corner and listened to Hakyeon talk with half an ear. He is depressingly sober, because he hadn’t really felt like drinking cheap beer—and unlike Hakyeon, he has class tomorrow.

“Hyung,” Hakyeon slurs, leaning into Wonshik groggily, “I’m so hungry.”

Wonshik grimaces. “Yeah, I know. How long’s it been?”

“A week?” Hakyeon screws up his face like he’s trying to remember. “Oh, no. Two.”

Hakyeon has gone longer without feeding before, but not much longer. The longest Wonshik can remember is four weeks, and by that point Hakyeon had been so rabid he’d barely been himself—he didn’t speak, just paced, scratching at his arms and curling up into a ball. His eyes had looked straight through Wonshik—who wasn’t faring much better—like he wasn’t even there, and it was one of the most terrifying things Wonshik had ever seen. They had been in jail, in China somewhere for some offence that Wonshik can’t even remember, and eventually Wonshik had managed to glamour a guard who was stupid enough to come near them and they’d escaped. Hakyeon had come back to himself the moment he’d fed, but it’s not something Wonshik ever wants to see again. Even like this, at two weeks, he can feel how desperate Hakyeon is getting. He shivers, but he isn’t cold. Maybe coming back here really was a mistake.

“Okay,” he hums cheerfully, shifting his grip so as to hold Hakyeon up. “I’ll glamour someone for you, how does that sound? And then you’ll be as right as rain.”

He’s had to do that more than a few times, back when Hakyeon was new—his stupid wench of a maker hadn’t even bothered to inform him about the true extent of his powers, and so Hakyeon was a newborn in every sense of the word—and he loathes having to do it again, but what can he do? They are brothers in every way but blood, and Wonshik would give his life for Hakyeon. Not that he particularly wants to.

“Or you could just kiss me,” Hakyeon purrs, and when Wonshik turns to look he can see that his eyes are glowing an eerie yellow at him through the darkness. He can feel Hakyeon’s glamour, pushing at the edges of his vision, but it has no effect on him.

Instead of dignifying that absurd proposition with a response, he smoothly slides his arm down to Hakyeon’s waist and jabs two fingers there, making him yelp and leap forward—but he’s so uncoordinated that he stumbles and falls, grabbing onto Wonshik at the last second and pulling him down with him. They end up a tangle of limbs on the pavement, Wonshik’s head butting into Hakyeon’s stomach, somehow, his palms grazed. Hakyeon is writhing and bleating, but Wonshik is paying no attention to that whatsoever. “Shut up,” he growls, his fangs descending of their own accord.

Hakyeon obviously senses the authority in his tone, because he obeys, going as limp as a rag doll. Wonshik scrambles to his feet, his eyes on the ground, on the dark stain that was hidden by snow—the same dark stain that’s making his chest tighten with hunger. “What is it?” Hakyeon whispers, rolling over onto his back and getting up.

Slowly, Wonshik turns in a circle on the spot, his head in the air, sniffing. The snow, although light and not really sticking, has been falling for a while, so he doesn’t know what to expect. There’s a prevailing breeze from the south, and when he turns in that direction—aha. “Stay close,” he orders, and starts in that direction.

“I can’t shift,” Hakyeon hisses somewhat desperately as he follows. When Wonshik looks over his shoulder, he can see that Hakyeon has his arms wrapped around himself. “If something happens—”

“You run,” Wonshik mutters, stepping into the shadow of a building and creeping along the wall. “You run and don’t look back. They won’t chase you.”

The smell is getting stronger with every step; he doesn’t have to do much to track it, not when the wet, tangy scent of blood is burning through him and setting him alight. He isn’t even hungry—or, at least, he thought he wasn’t. But he should have known better. The hunger never truly abates. Such is his curse.

He rounds the corner into an alley and pauses, although every fibre of his being is screaming at him to leap, to hunt, to pounce. But he knows better. There are no heartbeats around, save for Hakyeon’s, pounding hard and fast behind him. The smell is overpowering, but his heart sinks as he creeps deeper into the alley, towards a little drift of snow, not knowing what he’s about to find but dreading it anyway.

“Oh my god,” Hakyeon gasps as Wonshik bends down and brushes the snow away.

It’s a human male lying there, dead, his unseeing eyes pointing skyward. Wonshik pushes at him, rolling him over on his side, and bares his fangs at the extent of his wounds—one of his arms is gone entirely, ripped apart, and he has bite marks all over his torso. He reeks of gore and viscera and wet dog, and Wonshik shudders. The ground around him is splattered with blood that is still wet, although it’s not warm; when Wonshik touches it with a finger and places it in his mouth, he nearly sighs. What a waste.

Hakyeon moves a little closer to Wonshik as he stands up, and they stay there like that for a moment, observing a moment’s silence for this man who will never come home. Wonshik has killed before—countless times, with how old he is—but he does not take pleasure from it like many of his contemporaries. This is senseless violence, violence that could have been avoided, and it nearly makes him sick.

Neither of them have to ask how he died, or what killed him; the evidence is written there, in the bite marks on his neck, his chest, and Hakyeon closes his eyes and sways a little on the spot. “We’ll have to summon an angel,” he whispers.

Now _that_ makes Wonshik hiss, the sound alien in the quiet of the deserted alley. “Of course we will,” he chokes out through gritted teeth. “How wonderful.”

He can’t even use the excuse that it’s close to dawn—sunrise is still three and a half hours away, so they have plenty of time—and Hakyeon’s too drunk to do it. Still, he has no idea where the hell he’s going to find salt and lavender at three in the morning. And to think that he’d thought the night was boring… “Okay,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair—which needs a trim—and retracting his fangs. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”

“Wait, no—” Hakyeon says, but Wonshik turns and sprints away, and the last of his sentence is lost.

He finds the lavender in someone’s courtyard; it’s not flowering, but that’s alright. He breaks into that house and rummages through their kitchen until he finds some table salt and tucks both of his finds into his pocket, muttering the entire time about how idiotic the angel summoning method is. Why _lavender?_ Why _salt?_ Why not just throw in some frankincense, too, and maybe myrrh? Or the blood of a virgin? The worst part is it’s not even guaranteed to _work_. It’s not a summoning, not really. It’s more like a request—a request that angels can choose to ignore, if they want, which makes the whole ritual obsolete in the first place.

When he returns, Hakyeon has slumped against the wall near the body, his eyes shut. He appears to be asleep, but the moment he senses Wonshik nearby he scrambles to his feet, alarmed. “Did you get it?”

“Yeah,” Wonshik mutters, waiting for Hakyeon to come closer before starting to pour the salt in a circle around them and the body. “What do we have to say again?”

Hakyeon’s nostrils flare as Wonshik pulls out the lavender and rubs it between his hands, crushing it and sprinkling it over the body. “Anything in Latin. It doesn’t matter what.”

He’d forgotten about that idiotic caveat, too; if there are any particular words to summon an angel, they are not known. Latin usually works— _usually_ —but Wonshik thinks it’s beyond stupid. What’s the point of having a summoning ritual like this if one can say “my back is itchy” in Latin and have it work? Pointless. “Okay,” he sighs, closing his eyes and taking Hakyeon’s hand, scouring his brain for all the Latin he knows. “Lupus non timet canem latrantem.” _A wolf is not afraid of a barking dog._

“What the fuck does that—” Hakyeon starts, but he’s cut off by an immense rush of power, so strong it makes them stagger back a few steps.

With a rustling of feathers and the scent of lavender in the air, an angel appears, directly across from them in the circle. It’s got terrifying black eyes, and it’s smiling, but the effect is somewhat marred by its long fangs, longer than Wonshik’s own—and it’s not that he feels inadequate, but that he feels threatened. This angel is tall and ageless, and although it looks friendly enough Wonshik does not trust it as far as he can throw it, which isn’t very far.

The angel looks at them, looks down at the body at its feet, and winces. “Oh dear,” it says, and Wonshik finds he has to agree.


	5. five

_14th March 1918_  
Although none of them had been sure how the newspaper was going to fare, the fact that it’s a resounding success isn’t _that_ surprising—or at least not to Wonshik and Hakyeon. Hongbin seems almost overwhelmed by their newfound fame (or infamy, in the eyes of the authorities), although he throws himself into working as hard as all the others; he’s at the church basement nearly every night, and it’s not until he’s absent for a few days that Wonshik finds himself missing his company and cheerful smile.

As Wonshik’s finishing up for the night—he normally wraps things up by one am, which is late enough for the mortals but early enough for him that he can still patrol his territory or feed or prepare for classes—he’s just heading up the steps to the church proper when he hears the main doors open. It’s a testament to how far he’s come that his first reaction isn’t to duck into the shadows, to hide; instead he looks up in interest, happy to see that it’s Hongbin slipping in through the double doors and shutting them quietly behind him. “Hello,” he calls softly, and is rewarded with the sight of Hongbin jumping out of his skin at the surprise. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Hyung!” Hongbin waves happily and ambles over, taking in Wonshik’s coat and briefcase. “Are you heading out?”

Wonshik shrugs. “I was going to. Where have you been these past few days? Is everything alright?”

Hongbin’s eyes slide to the side, and he suddenly seems particularly fascinated with the pew just off to Wonshik’s left. “Uh, yeah. Things are fine now. I guess. I moved out of home, got my own place.”

He wants to ask how on earth Hongbin could afford that, since it doesn’t seem like he works, but talking about money is rude so he refrains and instead scrounges around for something else to say (he hasn’t fed in a while, and Hongbin’s heartbeat is distracting him). “That’s exciting,” he says, and he tries to sound encouraging. “Is it far from here?”

“Within walking distance.” A thought occurs to Hongbin—Wonshik can see it flitter across his face, and then he’s off, speaking at a million miles an hour. “Hey, hyung, you should come over tomorrow afternoon! I don’t have much set up yet, it’s still pretty messy, but I could show you around…”

“I can’t,” Wonshik says gently. “Or at least, not during the day. My eyes.” He gestures at them to illustrate what he means.

He doesn’t know how much Hongbin knows, only that he knows whatever Seongkwon’s told him, and whatever Seongkwon knows is whatever the university knows: that Wonshik has a very specific and very rare medical condition whereby he can’t go outside during the day because his eyes are too sensitive and it causes him far too much pain. It’s not technically lying, so he doesn’t feel guilty about it; it’s just that his eyes won’t be the only thing hurting if he steps into the sunlight. If Hongbin suspects there’s another layer to this story, though, he doesn’t say it, and instead looks chagrined. “Oh, sorry. I forgot. You could come over in the evening instead?” Wonshik hesitates, so Hongbin’s tone turns pleading. “You could bring Hakyeon… if you want.”

He has to hide a smile at that. He doesn’t particularly want to bring Hakyeon, but he supposes there would be no complaints on Hongbin’s end if he did so. “I’ll come,” he says eventually, trying to resist sighing. “At around nine? Is that too late?”

“Perfect,” Hongbin replies with a grin, fishing about in his pockets for a piece of paper.

They say their goodbyes, and when Wonshik spills outside—it’s finally, _finally_ warming up—and turns to head in the direction of home, he finds himself smiling. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he was worried about Hongbin. There is clearly something going on at home, if the way he avoids the topic whenever it comes up is any indication; Wonshik had tried pressing Seongkwon gently for details, but that hadn’t worked either. It’s really none of his business… but still, he worries.

“You’re looking smiley,” says Hakyeon the moment Wonshik walks in the door. He’s lounging on his bed reading a book completely naked, and Wonshik averts his eyes instantly. “Catch up with your boyfriend?”

There it is again, that weird little thread of jealousy that has been cropping up more and more often of late. It’s not blatant enough for Wonshik to call Hakyeon out on it, and even if he did he feels like that would just spark a fight between the two of them. “More like _your_ boyfriend. Have you seen the way he looks at you?” he replies conversationally, shrugging off his jacket and loosening his tie.

At that, Hakyeon rolls his eyes and turns over to wiggle his ass at Wonshik. “The concept of people having crushes on me is not a foreign one. I’m not surprised.”

“You’re on my bed,” is all Wonshik says to that.

//

He considers buying a housewarming gift, but then reconsiders that almost immediately. All the relevant shops are closed after dark, and besides, when he was a human an appropriate housewarming gift was a horse, and somehow he doesn’t think that quite applies to Hongbin. So he just heads to the address Hongbin had written on a scrap of paper for him, lost in his head the entire tram ride there, wondering if he’s doing the right thing.

“Hyung!” Hongbin cries when he opens the door, his smile making his eyes disappear into crescent moons. “You came!”

This time, his heartbeat isn’t nearly as distracting thanks to the woman Wonshik’d fed on last night, and so when he smiles he doesn’t even have to try to keep his fangs retracted. “That I did,” he says amicably.

He shuffles in the doorway for a few moments before Hongbin seems to remember himself. “Oh, come in.”

Obediently, he does, slipping off his shoes when he steps inside. That particular vampire caveat is a mildly annoying one at worst, since it’s relatively easy to get around—all he has to do is glamour the occupant and make them invite him in—and, not for the first time, he wonders why he gets so many restrictions and a being like Hakyeon gets to be so… free. “Thanks,” he murmurs as he steps inside the little house, looking around. “This is lovely.”

It’s tiny, even smaller than he and Hakyeon’s place, but it’s cosy and warm and there’s a certain charm to it that Wonshik can appreciate. As Hongbin had claimed, it is sort of messy; there’s piles of books everywhere, and he hasn’t purchased much furniture since all his clothes are kind of heaped in a corner. There’s a few drawings up on the wall, and he wanders over to inspect them while Hongbin tries to tidy up a bit. “These are good. Did you do these?”

“Huh? Oh, no, my friend Gongchan did. He studies art at university,” Hongbin calls as he’s putting some clean plates away in a cupboard.

“Oh,” Wonshik replies. Before he can rethink it, he asks, “And you? Did you not want to go to university?”

There’s a pause, a clattering of dishes, and then Hongbin replies with a sigh. “I wanted to… but I didn’t want to give up who I am.” When Wonshik turns to look at him, they lock eyes, and Hongbin looks deadly serious. “I didn’t want to become Kinoshita Hiroshi permanently. I didn’t want that to go on my record, not when I’m Lee Hongbin. And if it was a choice between staying me and learning, I chose to stay me. I figured I could learn by myself. It’s part of the reason I’ve been so annoying these past few months.”

Just when Wonshik couldn’t hold Hongbin in any higher regard, he comes out and says things like _that_. He wants to give him a hug, but knows that’s not something they do, so instead he just beams happily at him. “You haven’t been annoying. Not at all. I enjoy teaching, and you’re more enthusiastic about it than most of my students. I’ve tried to teach Hakyeon, too, but he doesn’t care, even though he has a natural talent for learning languages…” he trails off, realising he’s drifting too close to taboo territory, to revealing something that cannot be revealed.

“Oh, really? How long have you known him?”

“We’re childhood friends,” he replies after a pause, turning back to the drawings. “We kept in touch on and off all our lives, but when we both returned to the country a while ago we reconnected and decided to live together.”

A longer pause. He hates being in the dark like this; can Hongbin sense the strength of their bond? Does he know this is a lie, that they’ve been together for centuries? If he does, he doesn’t say it, and Wonshik is relieved. A tiny, hateful, _spiteful_ part of him wishes that the truth would just come out so that he wouldn’t have to harbour so many secrets, but he knows that if that happens it will be the death of the friendship between them. Mortals don’t take kindly to knowing that there is a blood-drinking demon in their midst, even if Wonshik tries to be good, or as good as a vampire can possibly be. He just has to keep living this lie for as long as he can, until he and Hakyeon move away once more. That’s all he can do.

“Would you like tea?” Hongbin calls a few minutes later. When Wonshik turns, he finds that the minuscule kitchen is now clean—well, tidy—and Hongbin’s standing there with his hands on his hips. “Or something stronger?”

For a moment Wonshik goes to refuse, but then he reconsiders. It’s Friday, after all, and he doesn’t have class tomorrow. What’s there to lose? “Sure,” he replies, eyeing the soju Hongbin pulls from the cupboard.

They drink and drink and drink, and although Wonshik hasn’t drunk in an age he has a high tolerance—thanks to his immortality—so Hongbin gets tipsy long before he does, and when he’s starting to feel giggly and lightheaded Hongbin’s halfway to being drunk. They’re going through his textbooks again, or they _were_ ; right now they’re tossed off to the side as Hongbin carefully pours them another shot each, his hands trembling with the strain of his concentration. “Hyung,” he slurs, and Wonshik tenses. “What are you?”

The age-old question that Wonshik is determined never to answer. “A linguist,” he says, not caring that they both know he is being deliberately obtuse. “What are _you?”_

“I thought I was human,” Hongbin hiccups as he takes his shot in hand and pauses to scrutinise Wonshik. “But… humans don’t see colours around people, like you and Hakyeon. Humans don’t… sense things like I do.”

Wonshik is shocked into silence at that. Whatever he was expecting Hongbin to say, it certainly wasn’t this; the fact that he doubts himself is somewhat endearing, even when it shouldn’t be. “You’re human. As human as human can be,” he reassures Hongbin, reaching out slowly to take his wrist. Underneath the pale skin there, Wonshik can see his veins, a perfect map of his lifeblood, and he places two fingers directly over Hongbin’s pulse point. “See? Normal.”

Hongbin reaches for Wonshik’s own wrist, but smoothly he pulls his hands away, grabbing his shot as an excuse. His cold skin can easily be explained. A lack of a heartbeat cannot, and he grits his teeth after downing his shot. He hates these lies.

“I don’t know what you are,” Hongbin sighs, leaning back on his hands and flicking his hair out of his face. He wears it down, over his forehead but sort of swept to the side, longer than what’s fashionable, and Wonshik wonders why. “But I don’t think you’re normal.”

At that, Wonshik looks away. It hurts more than he thought it would, to hear that. He is normal, as far as he is concerned; he has been like this for so long that it’s all he knows. He can’t even remember what it’s like to be mortal. But hanging around with so many of them means their viewpoints are starting to rub off on him, and he’s not sure if he likes it. He has known his place in the world for centuries. He does not want to challenge it now.

“Is anyone?” he says faintly, reaching for the soju bottle.

 

 _30th July 1440_  
Ever since the King announced that he wanted to create an alphabet—an announcement that had sent ripples through court, and not very pleasant ripples, either—Wonshik’s been working through the night nearly every night. Mostly it’s because he wants to prove to the King that he deserves to be here in the _jiphyeonjeon_ (Hall of Worthies, the others call it, but Wonshik just raises his eyebrow at that name. He doesn’t feel very worthy) with all the other scholars, even though he is by far and away the youngest, and probably the only one who has no idea just what he’s doing there… But there’s also a small part of him that relishes the time away from Taehee, who has become somewhat insufferable now that Wonshik’s given her freedom to do as she pleases. As far as he can tell, she has a revolving door of lovers, but Dongjoo is the one he hears about the most; Wonshik doesn’t dislike him, but it’s exhausting to hear about.

Tonight is one such night, and when he startles awake he realises he’s fallen asleep over his books once more and his back is hurting something fierce. He sits up and stretches, winces, looks over at the pile of winter coats he’d surreptitiously smuggled in one night for occasions just like this one. They look warm and inviting, but when he thinks of his own bed—well, he’s up in a shot and out the door as fast as his numb legs can carry him.

It’s pleasantly warm outside, and he hurries towards their little house on the far side of court, thanking the gods that there’s a full moon tonight that he can see by. It’s not that he gets spooked in the dark, not really; it’s more that he gets spooked by the things that _live_ in the dark, and although he knows he’s safe from wolves and tigers and such he still speedwalks home. Perhaps the sleep deprivation is catching up on him. It wouldn’t be a surprise.

Taehee is asleep in his bed when he gets in, to his shock; he stares blankly at her for a moment before undressing silently, pulling on his sleeping pants and peeling back the blankets carefully. She startles awake when he touches her on the face, and burrows closer to him instinctively; he lets her, somehow knowing she needs this comfort. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, which is a lie. Her voice is all wobbly, and her arms tighten around him.

“Come on,” he replies, pulling back so he can see her face. Gently, he brushes her hair out of her eyes, his hand sliding down to rub her arm softly. “What’s really wrong?”

She doesn’t speak for the longest time, just closes her eyes, and after a while he actually thinks she falls asleep, when—“You’re going to laugh at me,” she says, miserably, and he bites back a smile.

“When have I ever laughed at you?”

“Um! When have you not, dear husband?” She smacks him on the chest playfully, and he rolls away, laughing openly now. “What about that time I stitched myself to my needlework? What about that time I got ink in my braid, and it ended up all over my hanbok? What about—”

“Okay!” he says, putting his hands up, a plea. “Okay, I laugh at you all the time. But I won’t laugh at you for important things. So just tell me what’s wrong, please, so I can go to sleep.”

She sits up and pouts, and with her hair sticking up around her head she looks simultaneously cute and crazy. “I miss you!” she wails, and Wonshik sits up too, trying to hush her. “I know it’s stupid, because I have all the free time in the world to do whatever I like, and I have people falling over themselves to court me. But it’s not the same without you here. And now you’re not even coming back to the house at night! I never see you anymore and… and I hate it.” At the conclusion of her outburst, she tucks her legs close to her chest and loops her arms around them, looking smaller than she has any right to.

“Oh, Taehee,” he sighs, reaching out to cup her face. She leans into the contact, and he hums. There’s only a few times in his life where he finds he actually enjoys the touch of others, but this is one of those times; her cheek is soft against his hand, and she is deliciously familiar. “I’m sorry. The King’s new project is sapping all my time and energy. I have so much to prove because I’m the youngest. I can’t fail.”

“I know. And I know I’m being selfish.” She smiles wryly. “And I don’t want you to change your schedule for me. But now you know how I feel.”

He lies back down and pulls her with him so she ends up with her head pillowed on his chest, and he starts to stroke her hair, the tiredness setting in already. “I’ll find a way to fix this,” he murmurs to her, because he wants to. He should have known her loud posturing about her lovers was her way of complaining about the situation—but he really does feel like he’s starting to go insane with the work and the lack of sleep, so that’s a problem for another time. All he can do now is sleep.

//

It’s another three days before his delirious brain comes up with a solution, and when he turns it over in his mind he realises it isn’t much of a solution but it’s one that is going to have to do. He’s still working madly through the night, poring over literary texts and tearing apart their very language, but Taehee is now always in the back of his mind—and one afternoon he steals away from the jiphyeonjeon to head to the markets. He finds what he’s looking for in an eclectic looking shop that has a horse tied to a post out the front, and eyes it warily before going in; he comes out with a large woven basket that seems determined to wriggle out of his hands the whole way back to the palace. When he gets back to the little sequestered room he has been assigned, he puts it in a corner (after leaving a cup of water inside the basket) and tries to go back to work. _Tries_ being the operative word, because he’s entirely distracted all through the afternoon and evening thanks to the noises coming from the basket.

When it gets dark, he lights candles resignedly and sits back down at his desk, staring with dismay at the array of paper over every spare free surface. He had wanted to head back to Taehee tonight with his present for her, but it’s not looking like he’s going to be able to do that. There is simply too much work to be done. Browbeaten, he turns back to his work, promising himself he’ll stay awake this time.

And promptly falls asleep.

//

He wakes to something licking his face, and when he cracks open an eyelid he realises he’s lying on his back staring at an unfamiliar patch of ceiling, weak sunlight streaming in through the windows. It takes him a moment for him to realise where he is—and what, exactly, is licking him—but once he does he sits up in shock. He’s alarmed when he realises Taehee’s present has escaped the basket and has decided to chew up the notes he was working on. He’s more alarmed when he realises it’s just past dawn and he’s slept here all night. He’s even more alarmed when he realises he’s covered in an unfamiliar cloak, and when he looks at it he screams and scrambles away from it so violently he nearly smacks his head on the wall.

The cloak that he was lying under, the same cloak that had apparently been placed gently over him while he slept, is none other than a bright red _hongryongpo_ —the King’s overcoat. It’s inscribed with a dragon design in beautiful gold thread, and when he creeps closer and touches it with a trembling hand he realises this is _real_. This is the King’s actual hongryongpo, the very one he wears on his own _body_ , and now it’s here, in Wonshik’s room.

“Oh, god,” he moans, looking at Taehee’s present like it can give him the answers. “I need to… I need to go home. What the hell am I going to do with this?”

In the end he puts the present back in the basket and wraps the basket in the hongryongpo, not even stopping to consider this is probably treason because if he does he will panic, and steals out of the jiphyeonjeon carefully. It’s early enough that there’s barely anyone around, so he takes his chances and starts running, sprinting back home as fast as his legs can take him.

He bursts in the entry hall of their little house and barely stops to toe off his shoes before turning right, heading towards the women’s wing, shoving through doorway after doorway until he arrives in her bedroom. He’s relieved to see she slept alone last night, because he doesn’t know how he would even _begin_ explaining this to one of her lovers—but relief is all he can feel, because she wakes up when he enters, panting and sweaty, his _dongpagwan_ , his scholarly hat, falling lopsided off his head. He must look a mess, but her mouth drops open in shock when she sees what he’s holding. “What the hell is that!” she hisses, crawling closer to touch it. “This is—”

“I don’t know how I got it either,” he babbles, placing his precious cargo down on the floor and unwrapping the hongryongpo to reveal the basket. “But, anyway, that’s not what I wanted to show you. I bought this for you yesterday afternoon and I wanted to bring it to you, but I fell asleep, so I couldn’t…”

He opens the lid of the basket and lifts out the wriggly thing inside, placing it into her arms unceremoniously before sitting back on his haunches and breathing, properly, for what seems like the first time since he woke up.

“Oh my goodness!” she squeals. In her arms is a little black puppy; Wonshik’s not too sure of the breed, since he’d never paid attention to those types of things, but the shop owner had assured him that he would grow up to be a medium sized dog appropriate for being both a house dog and a hunting dog, if he so desired. Right now it’s vibrating furiously in its determination to lick Taehee’s face, and when she hugs it to her chest and smiles softly at it Wonshik feels his heart melt a little bit. “He’s so cute! You really got him for me?”

“I did,” he says fondly, reaching up to pull off his dongpagwan, loosening the strings of his jeogori. “He woke me up this morning, by licking my face. Who knows how long I would have slept without him.”

Abruptly, Taehee leans forward and kisses him on the cheek, her face stretched into a grin. “I can’t believe you got me a puppy!”

At this, Wonshik blushes a little. “It’s… I mean, I know you said you were lonely. So. Now he can keep you company.”

Taehee kisses him on the lips this time, and he screws up his face and pushes her gently away. She takes the rebuke, though, because now she’s got something else to pay attention to; when she puts the puppy down, he instantly starts sniffing about the room, exploring his surroundings. “I don’t even know if I want to know how you ended up with the King’s hongryongpo,” she murmurs as she watches the puppy. “Considering it’s barely dawn.”

“Well, I know the King likes to take walks in the grounds at night,” he says. He’d been thinking about this on the mad dash over here, and figures this is the most likely theory. “I can only assume he saw the light on in the jiphyeonjeon, and went to investigate. And found me. Asleep over my books.” Taehee looks up and rolls her eyes, and he holds his hands up. “Why he decided to leave me his hongryongpo… is anyone’s guess. I won’t presume to know how the King’s mind works.”

Taehee just looks at him for a long, long moment, before throwing her head back and laughing long and loud. Wonshik’s too tired to see the humour in it, but it’s nice to hear her laugh; he hadn’t even realised how much he missed it. “You know,” she says through peals of laughter, one hand on her stomach, “I always listen to my friends complain about their boring, normal husbands, and I always think I can’t relate to them in the slightest. But this takes it to a new level. You are the furthest thing from normal I know.”

“I know,” he replies with a wry smile, staring at the gold embroidered dragon glittering in the sunlight. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

 _6th May 1918_  
The fragile peace he’s created for himself doesn’t last forever.

After consulting with everyone on the team, Seongkwon has decided to increase their output of the newspaper to weekly; he’s brought on more staff to help, and everyone is putting in long hours. It’s worth it, though, to know that they’re getting back at the regime in their own little way. Wonshik’s linguistics columns prove incredibly popular, which he hadn’t expected, and even Hongbin’s little columns on foreign languages get attention. Hakyeon’s job is ridiculous; he runs a column where people can write in with issues and he’ll give advice, which is laughable since most of the questions he gets are things like “I think my neighbour is spying on me to make sure I’m not speaking Korean at home, how can I deal with him?”—and the idea of anyone going to Hakyeon for advice is absurd, but he surprisingly enjoys writing his column. All in all, as the months fall away, Wonshik realises he’s having more fun in the church basement than he has in the past fifty years—and that would frighten him, if he gave a damn. His apathy has bred complacency, and he’s even getting lazy with patrolling his territory. It’s not like he has time for it, anyway.

“Heading out?” he asks Hongbin, leaning back in his chair and spinning his pencil in his fingers. Hongbin looks up at him and yawns in lieu of an answer, and Wonshik chuckles. “I’ll walk you home.”

He’s complacent, not stupid, and when they spill onto the pavement he looks up at the full moon and sniffs disdainfully. Hongbin is prattling on about the cherry blossoms, but Wonshik is tuning him out, too busy listening to the heartbeats of people in the surrounding streets. It’s been a while since he fed, he realises, as he turns back to Hongbin and sees the artery in his neck pulsating. Huh.

“Don’t you think they’re beautiful?” Hongbin asks, gesturing to the flowers all around him.

The season for blossoms is coming to a close, so most of the blossoms are actually on the ground, but Wonshik supposes they’re beautiful in their own way—even if the stench of rotting flowers is nearly overpowering to his immortal senses. He’s seen hundreds of cherry blossom seasons over the centuries, though, so it’s nothing that special to him. “I suppose so,” he says offhandedly, shrugging. “I’m not big on flowers.”

“Now why doesn’t _that_ surprise me?” Hongbin asks, rolling his eyes and elbowing Wonshik in the side playfully. “A threat to your fragile masculinity, are they?”

“No. I just don’t like how they smell.” Wonshik wrinkles his nose, but it’s not like he can explain, not properly, so he just hopes Hongbin will get the idea and drop the subject.

As they turn into one of the alleys leading towards Hongbin’s house, he turns around and walks backwards, so Wonshik can see him fold his arms over his chest. “Are you saying that, if you got a girlfriend, you wouldn’t get her flowers? Because you don’t like how they smell?”

The chance of Wonshik getting a girlfriend is infinitesimal, but that’s yet another thing he can’t explain to Hongbin, so he just raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. “No, I’d get her chocolate. You can’t eat flowers.”

“I think—” Hongbin begins, and then time stops.

Wonshik will never forgive himself for the way they sneak up on him, not in a million years. He’d known they were fast, but this fast? One moment they are alone in the empty alleyway, and then he’s surrounded by heartbeats, wet and raw and animalistic in his ears, too fast to be human. The smell of dog surrounds him, and he lets his fangs descend right as a feral growl rips the air apart.

“What the fuck!” Hongbin yells, grabbing Wonshik by the arm and pulling in an attempt to get him to move away. “Wonshik, we have to—”

They come at them through the darkness, moving as a pack; smooth and silent and fast, they are surrounded before Wonshik can even blink. Six—seven—eight of them, sleek and silvery underneath the light of the moon. Wonshik keeps his mouth clamped shut as he backs smoothly up against the wall, pulling Hongbin with him. Hongbin cannot know. Whatever happens, Hongbin cannot know—

“Demon,” a harsh voice calls from beyond the circle of wolves around them.

It steps from the shadows, and Wonshik cannot stop himself from shuddering. This creature, this beast, is hideous; a wolf-like head, torso covered in fur, a bushy tail, but it’s standing on two legs. Its hands are curled into claws, and as it looks at them Wonshik can see its horrible orange eyes, glowing at them through the darkness. A shiver runs down his spine. This is very, very bad, and he tries to tamp down the panic rising up in him, making him feel nauseous. He has no idea how to escape this situation, not without Hongbin knowing what he is. He could _kick_ himself for being so stupid. They will be lucky to escape with their lives.

“You have trespassed on our territory one too many times for us to allow this to continue,” the beast says, and Wonshik looks at its lolling tongue coming from that wolfy snout and wonders how it is actually speaking. Magic, he supposes. He isn’t too familiar with werewolves. “And now you dare to tread on our land underneath the light of the full moon?”

Wonshik glances over at Hongbin, who’s gone completely pale; he looks like he’s about to faint, and when they lock eyes he can see that he is mouthing _whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck_ over and over and over again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies quickly, injecting fear into his voice. “Let us—let us go. I don’t know what the fuck you are, but… Just back away.”

His impression of a terrified mortal is spot-on, if he does say so himself, but the beast isn’t buying it. Over its shoulder he can see a few more pairs of orange eyes, lurking in the darkness, and his heart sinks. “Quiet!” the werewolf snarls, taking a step forward. In sync, the wolves surrounding them step forward too, and when Wonshik looks at them properly he realises their eyes are orange as well. “I can smell what you are. Shall I kill your pet first?”

“He is _mine_ ,” Wonshik replies instantly, stepping in front of Hongbin and baring his fangs at the creatures.

That is a concrete threat, and the atmosphere changes from charged to practically suffocating—the wolves puff themselves up and start growling, and the beasts hunch over, becoming even more animalistic, if such a thing was possible. “He will be dead,” the werewolf snarls, the one Wonshik supposes is the alpha.

It becomes apparent immediately that, if they want to live, Wonshik is going to have to reveal what he is. There is no way around it. These creatures will not hesitate to tear them both limb from limb if he lets them, and he has no intention of letting them; this realisation hits him so hard he sags under the weight of it. Gone is their friendship. Gone is their camaraderie. Gone is the trust that Hongbin has extended to him. Gone is the church, gone is the newspaper, gone is the life they’ve built. Gone is everything that Wonshik has made over the past six months, and he had known all along that it couldn’t last, but the fact that it’s ending so suddenly hurts him more than he could ever expect. He is instantly reminded of why he never gets close to mortals, never forms attachments, and when he turns back to smile at Hongbin it’s a sad kind of smile. A smile to say _I’m sorry_. A smile to say _thanks for being my friend_. A smile to say—“Trust me,” he whispers, not bothering to hide his fangs. Hongbin, who is already pale, blanches at the sight of them.

Wonshik turns back to the wolves and snarls, hunching over, feeling his eyes glow red and not caring. “I’m not a fucking demon,” he growls to the leader, and leaps for his throat.

The wolves die easily. He had expected that, even though he hasn’t fought werewolves before; purebloods are essentially shape-shifters, delegated to the form of the wolf, and killing wolves is child’s play to him. He snaps the neck of one, uses its limp body to send another one flying into the nearest wall, whirls and plucks one out of thin air and tears its throat open. Interestingly, it’s the beasts that prove the most trouble; they are fast, nearly as fast as him, and he has just killed one when another one swipes him across the back from behind, opening wounds and making him screech with the sharp stab of pain. When he whirls, he sees this one is more human than the others; its eyes are less orange and more brown, and so he grabs its jaw and sinks his fangs into its neck, ignoring the disgusting feeling of fur in his mouth and instead drinking its blood in one long swallow. It struggles, but he has his arms wrapped around it; it can’t go anywhere. The blood tastes earthy, dirty, and when Wonshik pulls back he squeezes his arms until he feels the cracking of bones and the beast falls to the ground, dead.

“You—” is all the alpha manages to get out before Wonshik springs up the wall nearest to him to drive it into the ground. It yelps and scrabbles for purchase in the dirt, that horrible orange eye whirling around desperately, and for a moment Wonshik considers mercy. He would have the same reaction if he found them in his territory, after all. But then he remembers that poor anonymous man, bitten and left for dead alone in an alley just like this, and realises that is what they wanted to do to him, to Hongbin.

“Fucker,” he spits, and rips its head clean from its body.

It’s over.

He’s covered in viscera and gore, dripping with it, and when he stands up he realises his whole body is thrumming with a kind of bloodlust that he has not felt in centuries. He wants to kill, to rip, to tear, to _rend_ ; there is nothing that can best him, not one fucking thing on this planet that can stop him when he is at his prime, and he so rarely realises his true power like this but when he does it’s oh-so-sweet.

“What are you?”

Hongbin’s question is so quiet that he nearly misses it, but the moment Wonshik turns to look at him he deflates. His good mood is instantly gone. Hongbin is shaking so hard he looks like he’s about to collapse, and Wonshik longs to help him but knows that anything he does will have the opposite effect. His heart sinks. He didn’t expect Hongbin looking at him like he’s a monster would hurt this much… And the worst part is, he deserves an answer, more now than ever.

“There are a lot of different names—” he begins, but cuts himself off at the horrified look on Hongbin’s face. He retracts his fangs, swallows, tries again. “I am vampire.”

At that, Hongbin’s legs give way beneath him. His eyes are as wide as saucers, and when Wonshik takes a step closer he flinches so viscerally he nearly cracks his head on the wall. “Vampire,” he echoes faintly. “Like… Dracula?”

“You’ve read it?” Wonshik asks, surprised. He has, of course, because he was in Europe when it was published, and he tries not to let any vampire literature slip through his fingers—but from what he understands, it wasn’t terribly popular, and he doubts it’s been translated into Korean or Japanese.

“No.” Hongbin shakes his head slowly. “Just… heard of it.” A pause. He blinks once at Wonshik, slowly. “Are you going to kill me?”

Of course Hongbin’s first impression of his vampire self had to be a maniacal killer—it’s almost amusing, in a warped sort of way, since Wonshik’s standing amongst more bodies than he’s racked up in the past fifty years combined—when that couldn’t be further from the truth. His words are meaningless, he knows, but still he tries. “I only killed them because they were going to kill us… you. I don’t make a habit of doing that. And I’m not going to kill you.”

“I suppose,” Hongbin says as he’s standing up slowly, “if you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now.”

Wonshik doesn’t say a word.

“I also suppose that’s why you’re… grey.” He blinks, and a thought flitters across his face. “What is Hakyeon?”

“Hakyeon is an incubus.”

Hongbin nods and takes a step. “Right.” Another step. “Incubus.” Another. “Great.” His legs give way once more, and he sighs, almost like he’s resigned to his fate. “My body isn’t working. Shock, you see.”

Wonshik nods and approaches slowly, palms out to make it clear he isn’t going to hurt Hongbin, before helping him to his feet. All he could smell before was the tangy scent of werewolf blood, all over him—it’s in his hair, and he knows he’s going to have to spend an age in the bath to look normal again—but now that he’s close he gets a whiff of something else, and his fangs descend of their own accord. “Were you bitten?” he asks, putting Hongbin’s arm around his shoulders and lifting him.

“No,” Hongbin sighs, his eyelids fluttering shut. “One of them shoved me into the wall and my head is bleeding. You can drink from me, if you want. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Drink blood?”

It takes Wonshik less than a minute to get to Hongbin’s house from the alley, considering he runs at full speed, and when Hongbin opens his eyes once more he’s in his living room, and he yelps. “That is what I do,” confirms Wonshik, putting Hongbin down on the floor. Thankfully he seems to be standing on his own this time. “But I won’t drink from you. Not when you don’t mean it.”

Hongbin staggers towards his bedding and sits down on it heavily. Wonshik hovers, but considering the colour is reappearing in Hongbin’s face at a rapid rate, he figures it’s best if he leaves; he needs to summon an angel (again) to dispose of all those bodies, since he certainly can’t do it himself, and he probably needs to tell Hakyeon what has happened at some point. “I’m sorry,” he says as he’s backing away towards the door. Hongbin just looks at him evenly, although he is definitely more lucid now than he was moments ago. “I didn’t… I never wanted things to turn out like that.” It’s just excuses, now, so he _really_ has to go. “You know where to find me if you’d like to talk.”

He turns and heads back towards the alleyway, leaving bloody footprints behind him, following the metallic scent of drying blood and trying to forget the way Hongbin had looked at him like he was a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hongbin's Japanese name is Kinoshita Hiroshi (木下 弘).


	6. six

_8th May 1918_  
Wonshik had sort of been preparing himself for never seeing Hongbin again, so when there’s a knock at his door at sunset, loud and insistent and ceaseless with a heartbeat that’s definitely Hongbin’s pounding behind it, he nearly leaps out of his skin. For a moment he hesitates. Perhaps it would be best if he hid and pretended he wasn’t home; he has no idea what Hongbin’s intentions are, and for all Wonshik knows he could be waiting on the other side of the door with a stake. But then he remembers what he did last night, the bodies he left in his wake, and reconsiders. He can handle Hongbin, stake or no stake.

“Okay,” Hongbin blurts the moment Wonshik opens the door. Thankfully, his hands are free of a stake, and he isn’t wearing a jacket so unless he has one stashed up his pant leg he looks clean. He moves to come inside, and somewhat bewilderedly Wonshik stands aside and lets him. “I’m not—I’m not upset with you. I’m grateful, actually, because I probably would have died if you didn’t do what you did.” He exhales loudly, and Wonshik shuts the door slowly. Hongbin’s hands are shaking. “And I’m not upset at you for being what you are. It’s kind of a relief, actually. But I am upset that you lied.” Wonshik opens his mouth to rebut, but Hongbin shakes his head firmly and uncurls his fist, producing a crumpled piece of paper. “And I have questions for you.”

It takes a second for Wonshik to process all of that. “Alright…” He runs a hand through his hair and gestures at the table. “Go on, sit. Do you want tea?”

“No,” Hongbin replies, but he sits, albeit warily. He waits for Wonshik to settle himself on the floor opposite before unfolding his paper, laying it out on the table, and clearing his throat. “What is a vampire?”

Wonshik just stares at him for a long, long moment. He knows he owes Hongbin this, but the last time he opened up like this was to… Hakyeon. And that was centuries ago. He is used to either being alone or being around other immortals who already know what he is; this is a question he is so rarely asked. “An immortal creature,” he says eventually, watching Hongbin’s face carefully. “I feed off life energy, as all false immortals do. I get that energy by feeding on the blood of mortals.”

“Immortal,” Hongbin mutters quietly to himself. “Okay. How old are you?”

“Four hundred and seventy four years old.”

At that, Hongbin sways a little, his face getting a little paler—but he swallows, and he looks down at his list, and he continues. “And how old were you when you… became a vampire?”

“Twenty three.”

“That means we’re the same age!” Hongbin brightens at that, and then he smiles properly, and it’s such a relief that Wonshik sags. “That means I don’t have to call you hyung.”

“Yes, you do,” Wonshik replies coldly. He lets his tone carry the authority of his nearly five centuries, and Hongbin must pick up on it, because he wilts slightly.

Hongbin looks at his next question. “And this blood lust… How hard is it to control? How hard is it for you to be around someone that is bleeding?”

Wonshik’s too busy scanning Hongbin’s face to notice what he has hidden in his other fist, so when he slashes the blade of his pocket knife across his palm, quick as lightning, the acrid smell of the blood comes as such a shock that his fangs slide out of their own accord and his gaze snaps to Hongbin’s hand. The cut is deep; not deep enough to have cut tendons, but deep enough so that Hongbin is dripping blood on the floor (the floor that Hakyeon had cleaned yesterday). “I can control myself,” he says stiffly, because he _can_. It’s distracting, since he still hasn’t fed—in fact that was his plan for tonight—but it’s not debilitating.

Hongbin is watching him carefully, no doubt staring at the flash of fang that shows when he speaks, so when he asks his next question it’s with an intensity that he perhaps did not intend. “And why can’t you go out in the sunlight?”

“I’ll burn,” Wonshik replies through gritted teeth. “Look—can I bandage that for you? I can tell it’s hurting.”

As if to prove a point, Hongbin closes his fist once more, but it has the opposite effect because he winces and Wonshik actually hears him stifle his whimper. “What’s an incubus?” he says instead, either too proud or too stupid to accept Wonshik’s offer.

Wonshik, however, is not a masochist _or_ a sadist, and so unfolds himself from the floor and heads over to the kitchen. They don’t have much in the way of medical supplies, since both of them heal nearly instantly if they’re well-fed, but Hakyeon had picked some up for reasons Wonshik still can’t fathom, and he finds them dusty but clean in a little wicker basket in one of the cupboards. “An incubus is another type of false immortal that also feeds on life energy. Just as I get that energy through blood, an incubus gets that energy through… sex.”

He crouches next to Hongbin and reaches for his hand slowly, and Hongbin lets him, clearly wanting to see how far Wonshik will go. But Wonshik wasn’t lying when he said he could control himself. The smell of the blood is overpowering, and the urge to bring Hongbin’s palm to his lips is making his gums throb, but he ignores all of that and just presses a wad of cotton there instead, holding it still as he wraps a bandage around Hongbin’s hand. “Oh,” Hongbin says quietly, although Wonshik doesn’t know if he’s replying to the incubus fact or the ease with which Wonshik handles his injury. He swallows, again, and Wonshik can hear how dry his mouth is. “You can drink from me… if you want.”

Wonshik does want, very much so, but he also suspects this fragile peace they have created between them might not survive if he bites Hongbin. So instead he lifts Hongbin’s now-bandaged hand to his lips and, keeping eye contact with him the entire time, licks at the thin line of blood that’s running lazily down his wrist. It’s intimate, and he hears Hongbin hiss as his tongue traces a line up the thin skin there, catching all the blood and cleaning him. When he pulls back and licks his lips, savouring the taste of the blood, Hongbin’s pupils are dilated and Wonshik can smell the fear and arousal washing over him in waves. Heh. “What do I taste like?” Hongbin murmurs, eyes wide.

Moving back over to the other side of the table and folding his legs underneath him neatly, Wonshik proceeds to lick at his own hands, cleaning them. “Funnily enough, you do taste sort of different,” he muses out loud, cocking his head to the side and licking his lips. “Definitely human, but with something… more. It’s… earthy. Heavy.”

He hadn’t expected that. Whatever Hongbin is is so ingrained in him that it’s even in his blood, which is curious. Would Hakyeon’s slave’s blood tasted the same? He wish he knew. He doesn’t like puzzles.

“What were those things last night?” Hongbin stares at the bandage on his hand, his hair flopping into his eyes.

“Lycanthropes.” At the blank look on Hongbin’s face, he resists a sigh. “Werewolves? There’s been quite the population explosion of them lately.” This time, he _does_ sigh. “I’d hoped to avoid them for as long as possible, considering our species have a long history of hatred dating back millennia. I knew they’d find me eventually. It was just a question of when. You noticed how there were two types, correct?” Hongbin nods. “The wolves, or the ones who actually looked like wolves, were born with werewolf blood. The change occurs around puberty. They are essentially shape-shifters, but they are locked to shifting into wolves and wolves only. The beast creatures? The ones that looked half-man, half wolf? Those are ordinary humans that have been bitten.”

“Are they immortal too?”

“No. They live slightly longer than humans do, but they live and they die. They are… an anomaly.” He was sort of fascinated to see them up close, since he’s managed to avoid them his whole life; that being said, he never wants to see them that close again. Once is most definitely enough.

Hongbin clears his throat and points at his piece of paper. “Last question. What are you doing here?”

Wonshik just stares at him blankly. “What do you mean, what am I doing here?”

“I mean, what’s your goal?” At Wonshik’s continued blank look, Hongbin waves his hands in the air, frustrated. “Your purpose. Surely you have a reason for being here, right? A reason for joining the movement?”

“I joined the movement because Seongkwon asked me to,” Wonshik says, guardedly. “I’m not… I’m not working for anyone, if that’s what you mean. I’m not out to get anyone. There is no immortal conspiracy. Hakyeon and I just wanted to come back and live our lives. That’s all we’ve ever wanted to do.”

Hongbin looks doubtful, but Wonshik cuts him some slack. His whole worldview has shifted very abruptly in a short space of time, so he is quite right to be skeptical. Wonshik would be, too; it’s probably why they get along so well. He sees a lot of himself in Hongbin, back when he was naive and fresh faced and actually youthful—how he does not carry the stench of age with him everywhere he goes, he does not know.

“Okay,” Hongbin says, pushing himself off the floor, leaving the piece of paper on the table. “Okay. That’s everything I wanted to know.”

“Alright.” Wonshik gets to his feet too, and now that he doesn’t have to act mortal, he moves faster than Hongbin can blink. “What now?”

“Can you… give me some space?” Hongbin wraps his arms around himself, and he looks very small. “I don’t hate you or anything. I wish you hadn’t lied, but I see why you had to. But I just need to… come to terms with this. It’s a lot to take in.”

It’s not like he can say no, even if he wanted to, so he just nods and watches as Hongbin leaves shakily. When Wonshik turns around to survey the room, it seems emptier than before; Hongbin has left nothing behind but the crumpled piece of paper on the table and the sweet taste of his blood on Wonshik’s lips.

 

 _11th May 1441_  
Spring is probably one of Wonshik’s least favourite seasons, only because it means everyone else in the palace is almost hyperactive; there are always events he must attend, gisaeng to watch, blossom viewing parties to go to. It’s exhausting, especially because he’s only just starting to create a healthy work-life balance… but that doesn’t matter to the King (the day after finding the hongryongpo he’d presented it back to the King rather sheepishly, and the King had just looked at him, amused). Taehee, too, has gotten into the spirit of the season, and one morning she marches right up to the Hall of Worthies and sits herself down outside—she isn’t allowed inside, of course; no woman is—until Wonshik comes out, jamming his dongpagwan down on his head and preparing himself to scold her.

He fails, of course, because she looks absolutely radiant today, dressed in one of her prettiest hanbok and with the dog—much to his amusement, she’s named him Butt—milling at her feet. “Dear husband,” she says, and rises from the ground to kiss him on both cheeks. “Will you walk with me in the gardens?”

She knows he won’t deny her. He knows he won’t deny her. But still he protests as he offers her his arm and makes a kissy noise at the dog. “This is what you dragged me out for?”

“It’s a beautiful day, and I’m worried that you never see the sunlight anymore,” she replies, looking up at him and grinning widely. “Plus I just wanted to go for a walk.”

She is probably right. He spends so much time inside during the day that he’s gotten a lot paler in the last year or so; sometimes he misses running around outside in the sunlight, but he was a child then, and he had to grow up and put away childish things just as they all do. “And why did it have to be me? You couldn’t take one of your companions?”

They amble along a lovely tree-lined path, occasionally passing others, the dog scarpering ahead of them to sniff at everything he sees. “They aren’t as interesting as you,” she says eventually, and he turns to look at her in surprise. He had been joking, but she certainly isn’t; her tone is dead-serious, and it warms his heart to hear.

He hasn’t had time off like this for as long as he can remember. He didn’t realise how much he missed it. To be able to walk with her with no expectations, no goal, no task to complete, is so freeing that he finds tension he didn’t even realise he was carrying start to drop from his shoulders. It’s past cherry blossom season now, so the last of the blossoms are rotting on the ground, and the sweet stench envelopes them totally. He has never quite realised how beautiful the gardens are.

They walk for an age, eventually stopping to sit under a huge oak. He leans up against its trunk, and after a while Taehee gives up on playing with the dog and flops sideways with her head in his lap, mewling until he strokes her hair. It’s nice, just the two of them there like that. Wonshik thinks he doesn’t need much more in life than this.

“Wonshik?”

He’s half-asleep already, so just grunts in lieu of a proper reply. “Hm?”

“What is our purpose?”

He cracks an eyelid open. “Our purpose as in you and I? Or our purpose here at court? Or our purpose as humans?”

“All of the above.”

“I don’t know,” he sighs, looking down at her. Her eyelids fan across her cheek when she blinks, and Wonshik wonders how he got so lucky. “Well, I don’t know about the latter two. But the former… I think our purpose is just to do what we’re doing.”

“Do you ever dream about running away?” She rolls over onto her back so she’s looking up at him and squints against the sunlight. “Escaping everything we’ve ever known and finding adventure?”

He understands where she is coming from. Sometimes, if he thinks about it too much, he feels trapped in his life; he was never given a choice as to what he wanted to do. From the beginning it was made clear to him he was going to be a scholar at court, and if he wasn’t smart enough to do that he would be a failure to the family and would have to go to the military. But he has never really contemplated leaving all that behind. He has no idea what it would be like to actually have choice, to say no to what his family wanted him to do, and so he doesn’t bother dwelling on it. And adventure? He was never very good in the limited combat and martial arts training he’s had, although he’s reasonably strong (thanks to the heavy scrolls he carries across the palace nearly every day), so adventure just sounds vaguely terrifying. Instead of telling her all of this, though, he just smiles at her. “Where would you go?”

His distraction method works, because she’s off, speaking at a million miles an hour about disguising herself as a boy so they could both ride to the north and into China to see everything she’s ever wanted to see. It allows him to sit back and let her talk, mulling over her words. What is _their_ purpose? They don’t really have one, if logic is to be followed—logic states that a husband and wife’s main purpose is to produce offspring, which won’t be happening any time soon, or ever. They aren’t in love with each other. The match did not even bring much family prestige, since their families are about equal anyway. Therefore, logic states that their marriage is purposeless. But looking down at her, chatting animatedly away and waving her hands in the air as she describes where they’d go after China, he feels like—for the first time in his life—logic doesn’t hold the answers he’s looking for.

 

 _24th June 1918_  
It’s force of habit that makes Wonshik head home via the church; he’s so much on autopilot that he doesn’t even realise what he’s done until he’s standing at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the building looming above him, and his heart sinks. It’s been a month and a half since Hongbin asked him to stay away, and he has been—Seongkwon had been curious, but Wonshik had just claimed he had a heap of work to do marking exams, and so he’s been sending in his articles with Hakyeon when he heads to the church every week (a sentence Wonshik never thought he would say). He misses it, in a perverse way. Belonging to that little group gave him a feeling of belonging that he’s only really felt a few other times in his long, long life, and now that it’s gone he’s… lonely.

He shakes himself out of that. He has no one but himself to blame, and he deserves his self-imposed exile. He’s lucky Hongbin hasn’t come to his house and staked him during the day; for the first two weeks, he’d made Hakyeon watch over him, just in case. Instead of dwelling on those feelings, though, he turns to head down the street and—

“Wonshik hyung?”

Hongbin’s sentence curls up at the end, hopeful, and when Wonshik turns he sees Hongbin is standing in front of the closed doors, arms wrapped around himself even though it’s summer. “I’m sorry,” Wonshik says immediately, going to back away. “I didn’t… I don’t want to frighten you. I didn’t mean to come here.”

When Hongbin takes a step closer, Wonshik can tell immediately that he’s drunk; he’s swaying slightly, and the scent of soju floats to Wonshik on the breeze. “Hyung,” he slurs, but he’s still advancing. Wonshik tenses, preparing for a stake, and that makes Hongbin stop in his tracks. “Why are you so afraid?”

“You can tell?” Wonshik replies, surprised.

Hongbin nods, and gestures at Wonshik vaguely. “When you’re afraid, your aura turns… blue at the edges. And cold. Right now it’s… ice.” He takes another step closer, palms up, and when he speaks he sounds so small and hurt that it sends a pang of regret through Wonshik’s stomach. “Why are you afraid of me?”

“Mortals don’t like my kind.” He stands his ground and lets his fangs run out. No point hiding them anymore. “For obvious reasons.”

They’re so close now that it’s rather intimate, and for a second he thinks Hongbin is going to pull him in for a kiss. But then he just leans forward and puts his arms around Wonshik in a hug, nuzzling at Wonshik’s neck, and sighs. “You wouldn’t hurt me,” he says happily, and Wonshik realises with dismay that he’s right. “You killed all those wolves for me.”

Let him think of them as wolves. It’s easier than thinking of them as people, which they most certainly were; Wonshik tasted the humanity in their blood, and it fueled him. “I thought you wanted me to stay away,” is all he says instead.

That makes Hongbin pause, and perhaps it’s because they’ve never been this close before, but Wonshik feels it when he realises that the being he is hugging is ice-cold and has no pulse. He isn’t even moving the way mortals are when they stand still—which is never really still at all, because they’re always fidgeting. He could be a statue, and Hongbin sighs. “Life is more fun with you around. You’re a nice distraction from… everything else.” A pause. His breath is hot on Wonshik’s neck, and he wonders if this is what his victims feel. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he says softly, hugging Hongbin back. As he does so, his face ends up squished close to Hongbin’s neck, and his pulse thrums through his entire body. “Are you heading home? Do you want company for the walk?”

“Okay, hyung!” Hongbin steps back cheerfully, but trips over his own feet and nearly falls, saved only by Wonshik catching him.

It’s close to dawn, so Wonshik tries to hurry, but Hongbin is having none of it; he’s happy to amble along at his own pace, chatting Wonshik’s ear off about everything he’s missed at the church in the past month. It’s nice to hear, but it would be better to hear next evening when Hongbin’s sober and can actually speak—and when the sun’s not about to rise. Eventually he takes Hongbin by the hand and drags him the rest of the way, and when that fails he gives him a piggyback ride. Hongbin giggles the entire time, right in Wonshik’s ear, which would be cute if he wasn’t consumed by worry.

“Stay, hyung,” Hongbin pouts when Wonshik’s deposited him at his front door.

But staying is not an option, even if Hongbin had the facilities for a sleeping vampire; that horrible tiredness is coming over him, and the sky is lightening as they speak. “I can’t.” He starts backing away; he only has… a few minutes, at most, if he’s lucky. He’s going to have to run. “The sun.”

Hongbin’s eyes widen at that, and he goes to take a step down off his front step and nearly falls. “Go,” he slurs, waving at Wonshik. “I’ll see you tomorrow or whatever. Don’t… die.”

Wonshik only barely hears the last word, because he’s off, sprinting away as fast as he can go. The older he gets, the stronger and more powerful he becomes; right now there’s not an animal on earth that can outrun him, and he thanks every god he knows for that. The streets are starting to wake up, mortals beginning their day, so instead of dealing with them he crawls up the nearest wall and starts running across the rooftops. The problem with this is, as he’s running towards the east, he has a fantastic view of the rising sun, bathing the world in a pale pink glow. There was once a time where he longed for those rays, but no more. He has too much to live for now.

He makes it home just in time, slamming the door shut behind him and collapsing where he stands. Hakyeon is waiting for him, his face pale with fear, and he feels it the same time Wonshik does; every immortal has an innate sense of time, for reasons he cannot fathom. The sun has risen. He only just made it. “What the fuck!” Hakyeon yelps, fluttering around him nervously. The tiredness is threatening to overwhelm him, but he fights it, somehow, and gets to his feet to stagger towards his bed. He doesn’t even take off his shoes.

“Made up with Hongbin,” he hums happily into his pillow. He feels Hakyeon’s hands at his feet, tugging off his shoes and socks, and then he’s being rolled onto his back. Hakyeon helps him sit up, and when they lock eyes he can see that he is livid.

“He made you do this? Stay out past dawn?” Hakyeon accuses, and as Wonshik lifts his arms over his head for his shirt to come off he realises he’s made a mistake. “Was that his tactic to kill you?”

Staying awake after dawn is so torturous that he so rarely does it—and he’s meant to be better at it, with how old he is—and he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. His head is swimming like cotton wool as he lies back down and tugs his blanket over him, wishing Hakyeon had chosen another moment to pick a fight. “He was _drunk_ , he didn’t know,” he protests, and he hears Hakyeon tut.

“And who’s the one here now, taking care of you?” Hakyeon is beyond angry, but Wonshik does not have the energy.

“You,” he replies, and reaches around the blankets for Hakyeon’s hand. When he finds it, he pulls it close to his chest so Hakyeon’s forced to lie down with him. “It’s always you.”

He thinks he hears Hakyeon say something like _I don’t want you to throw your life away for a mortal_ , but then he’s gone, the great dreamless sleep claiming him no matter how hard he tries to fight it.

 

 _5th September 1918_  
“We’re nearly there.”

Hongbin’s voice is alarmingly close to Wonshik’s ear, and he jumps, his fangs sliding out. He doesn’t like being frightened, and he certainly doesn’t like being frightened when he is blindfolded; he feels strangely crippled without his sight, a sensation he isn’t used to. “Somehow that’s not reassuring,” he replies, perfectly droll.

It had been Hongbin’s idea (but for some bizarre reason Hakyeon had gone along with it), for all three of them to go on a midnight picnic. Wonshik had protested, because he can’t even eat so a picnic is entirely pointless for him, but one thing he has learned is that if those two get their minds set on something, by God it’s going to happen. Hongbin had said he went in the summertime with friends and had such a great time he wanted to take the two of them, but Wonshik suspects it’s just a way to steal some time away from the church. With their infamy, the stress levels are beginning to creep up; Wonshik’s used to it, considering the job he did as a mortal, but the others are all suffering because they are not used to the workload. All of this is why he’s sitting in the back of a buggy blindfolded while Hakyeon drives (he takes any opportunity to get close to horses, for reasons Wonshik can’t fathom). All he can hear is the jingle of the horse’s harness, the crunch of leaves underfoot, and Hongbin, Hakyeon and the horse’s heartbeats. He has no idea where they are. They’ve been trotting for at least an hour, and Wonshik’s damn sick of his teeth knocking together.

“Put your fangs away,” Hongbin chides with a tut, slapping Wonshik on the knee. “It will be worth it when we get there, trust me.”

Hongbin’s smart enough to have used a huge swatch of thick fabric for the blindfold; Wonshik can’t see through it at all. From the sliver of silver light creeping in at the bottom, he’d have to guess it’s a full moon tonight, and resists a shiver. The werewolves have not given them any trouble since that horrible night months ago, but he often hears them howling around his house. They know where he is.

It’s another five minutes before Hakyeon coos at the horse in a way that Wonshik understands to mean ‘slow down’, and then they’re stopping. He wants to rip off the blindfold desperately, but waits until he feels Hongbin come around to help him down off the buggy. He strains to see what he can hear—heartbeats, three of them, although more are faint, somewhere in the distance. Those are animal heartbeats. He smells nothing of the pollution of the city; here the air is clean, and when he cocks his head to the side he hears the soft rustle of leaves, and over that, the gentle burble of running water. A stream about fifty meters in front of them, slightly to the left. Trees to their right. The gentle swish of grass in front of him tells him that they’re in a clearing, surrounded by woods bordering the stream.

All of this judgement occurs in less than a fraction of a second, of course.

“Okay, ready?” Hongbin asks, and then he’s tugging at the blindfold. Wonshik blinks as his eyes adjust to the moonlight, and brightens when he realises his assumptions were spot-on. The little clearing is beautiful, completely untouched by man, and when he turns back to look at Hongbin he tries to let his appreciation show on his face.

“First of all, how did you find this place?” He moves around to where Hakyeon is digging around in the back of the buggy, fetching blankets and a picnic basket. “And second of all, why the fucking blindfold?”

Hakyeon snorts, and Hongbin looks sheepish. “The blindfold was, ah, Hakyeon’s idea—”

Wonshik doesn’t really hear what he has to say because he turns back to Hakyeon and gives him a push that sends him sailing a good three meters away. He rolls and lands on all fours, and when he looks up at Wonshik his eyes are glowing yellow. “It was funny,” he protests, and Wonshik sees his skin ripple from the inside out. He wants to shift. “You’re such a know-it-all. It was nice to keep you in the dark for once.”

The growl that Wonshik lets out is playful, but it still spooks the horse, and Hakyeon rushes to calm it. Hongbin takes an armful of blankets from Wonshik and raises an eyebrow. “And as to how I found this place… Some of my uni friends took me here. Gongchan and the others. We all swam in the stream, but it’s too cold for that now.”

“Maybe for _you_ ,” Hakyeon says, taking the last of the food in his arms and elbowing Hongbin in the side gently. “Wonshik and I aren’t affected by temperature. The stream will be fine.”

Hongbin looks doubtful, but he doesn’t voice any of those thoughts as they lay out the blankets on the grass and lie down. Well, Wonshik lies down. The other two start unpacking the food, chatting gaily amongst themselves; Wonshik tunes them out and listens to the sounds of nature all around him instead. Hakyeon and Hongbin had tiptoed around each other for a while after the wolf incident, but Wonshik is a firm believer that time can heal all wounds and in this case he was right—soon they were back to normal, their bond perhaps even strengthened by the truth known by all. Hakyeon hates having to hide his nature from anyone, perhaps moreso than Wonshik—maybe because he relies on his shapeshifting so much—so when he realised he could be himself around Hongbin he’d taken him under his wing.

“Want some tea, hyung?” Hongbin asks, jolting Wonshik out of his reverie. He grunts in reply, and a warm cup is pressed into his hands.

He supposes he drifts off, after that; it’s not that he’s sleepy but moreso that he is completely relaxed, in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. The quiet sound of their voices, his two closest friends, and the gentle sounds of nature around him all combines to lull him into a light slumber. He’s still alert enough to hear them, but he doesn’t care what they say. This is nice, it’s just nice, and he thinks maybe he and Hakyeon should do it more often. Lord knows they need it.

“Hyung,” someone mumbles, and then there’s a warm body burrowing their way into his arms. He pulls them closer instinctively, thinking it’s Hakyeon—he’s done this too many times to count, and Wonshik’s used to it by now—only to feel a heartbeat that’s definitely human in origin under his hands. Hongbin.

“What—” he says, but Hongbin just shuffles even closer. “Are you okay?”

“Cold,” Hongbin whines.

Wonshik snorts. His eyes still aren’t open, and when he listens he can hear that Hongbin is very, very close; his heartbeat is so loud that it’s making his gums throb. “Go and cuddle up to the horse. I’m probably colder than the air.”

But Hongbin doesn’t move, so Wonshik just accepts his fate and doesn’t protest further. He’s halfway to falling back asleep when he feels Hongbin’s fingers on his face, tracing lines up his cheek; he’s just about to ask what the fuck he’s doing when his fingers come up to Wonshik’s mouth, and then his wrist is there, his pulse beating against Wonshik’s lips.

“Um,” Wonshik says, although it sounds more like a grunt. His fangs are out—when did that happen?—and he can smell Hongbin’s blood, earthy and fragrant. “Hongbin, what are you doing?”

“Bite me.”

That _does_ make Wonshik wake up, and he goes to rip Hongbin’s wrist away from his mouth but finds he’s got it clamped there, unable to move. “I don’t bite my friends,” he replies gruffly, the words muffled underneath Hongbin’s wrist.

“I want to know what it feels like,” Hongbin insists, his eyes clear and glittering in the moonlight. “Do it. Bite me.”

Oh, it’s a very hard thing to turn down, when someone is _offering_ him their blood and when their pulse is thudding through his own body, almost like he has a heartbeat again. And there’s something intoxicating about Hongbin’s blood because of its oddness; he has thought of it more than once in the months since. Moving slowly, he pulls Hongbin closer and grips his wrist to lick it experimentally. Hongbin shivers but doesn’t scream, so he brushes his lips along the thin skin there.

 _If Hakyeon could see me now_ , he thinks wryly, and bites down.

The effect is instantaneous. Hongbin moans, loud in his ear, and grinds up against him; Wonshik grips his wrist tighter and latches on in case he tries to pull away—but on the contrary he’s practically forcing it down onto Wonshik’s mouth. Just like last time, the taste of his blood is different, foreign, laced with that thick sweet magic that he can’t recognise beyond acknowledging it. This time, though, with it flowing straight from Hongbin’s veins into him, it’s even more heady than before. He thinks he might be getting slightly high.

He doesn’t take too much, because lord knows he doesn’t want to hurt Hongbin—and as nice as his blood is, it’s not nice enough for him to go past his limits. When he pulls back and licks the wound to close it, Hongbin actually whimpers, and Wonshik cannot hide his grin.

“What the fuck,” Hongbin says breathlessly a moment later, holding his wrist up to inspect. It’s smeared with blood, but the wound is healing in front of his eyes. “That was… wow. Is it always like that?”

“Only if I make it like that,” Wonshik replies breezily, sitting up and consciously taking a deep breath in. He can’t see Hakyeon anywhere, and hopes he wasn’t spying on them. If he finds out about that he won’t let either of them live it down. “Fancy a swim?”

He’s already getting to his feet and pulling his shirt over his head when Hongbin replies, his voice laced with—lust, yes, it’s lust that’s there and Wonshik smiles to himself. He may not be attracted to men—isn’t really attracted to anyone—but it’s certainly a confidence-booster. “It’s freezing,” he says faintly, his eyes ghosting all over Wonshik’s chest.

“Eyes up here,” Wonshik scoffs, throwing his shirt at Hongbin’s head and striding towards the stream.

With Hongbin’s blood running through him, he feels full of energy and revitalised; it’s a gorgeous feeling, and when he takes a running swan-dive into the river he feels so very alive. It’s a rare moment when he feels that way. Normally he is perfectly accepting of his corpse-like state, but right now he feels like he could do anything, anything at all; he could walk in the sun if he so desired, and its rays could not touch him. He doesn’t even shriek when Hakyeon pops up in the water next to him, grinning widely, water streaming into his eyes. He just pulls him in for a hug.

“You have blood on your mouth,” is all Hakyeon says, and then he’s swimming away.

They play fight for a while. Hakyeon has the advantage, because Wonshik gets the shock of his life when he goes to grab Hakyeon by the legs and finds that he has shifted on a long fish tail, the scales slippery under his hands. Even so, Wonshik’s strong and fast, and they both keep one-upping each other until they spot Hongbin on the bank watching them and exchange devilish glances in sync. Hongbin tries to run, but Wonshik is far too quick; he drags him kicking and screaming into the water, and Hakyeon starts splashing him with his tail. That turns into a war, too, and Wonshik thinks he’s never laughed this hard in his life.

He catches snippets of scenes and stores them away in his memory to treasure forever: Hongbin, his hair plastered to his head and with a huge grin on his face, whirling his shirt around his head to slap Hakyeon with it. Hakyeon doing a handstand in the water, the green-blue of his scales shimmering under the gossamer light. The three of them lying on the bank, panting with their hands flung over their chests. The way Hongbin looks, huddled up in the blankets they keep heaping him with to stop his shivering. The way Hakyeon’s skin glows in the moonlight when he shifts his legs back on. The way Wonshik loves them both, deeply and ceaselessly.

 _This is good,_ he thinks as he climbs into the driver’s seat of the buggy. Behind him is Hongbin, wrapped in so many blankets he practically looks like a ball, and next to the buggy is—well, it was Hakyeon, but then the air shifts around him and the horse spooks and there’s a tiger standing there instead, huge and triumphant. Wonshik watches as it starts loping towards the road and shakes his head as he urges the horse on (it doesn’t want to go, and he cannot blame it). Hakyeon can never resist a bit of showboating.

Yes. This is good, he knows it to be so, and he knows that nothing can take that away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact, the 5th of September is my birthday so of course I would choose to set the only _slightly_ gay scene on that day


	7. seven

_16th December 1918_  
The church basement at this time of year has turned out to be a welcome respite from the bitter cold, which is why it’s nearly full one night when the snow is falling heavily outside. Wonshik’s sitting at his desk, trying to pay attention to the article he’s trying to write and failing miserably, when Seongkwon enters the room and claps his hands. Everyone looks at him automatically—as a pastor, part of his job is to have a certain quiet authority about him, and he certainly fulfills that role. There is something about him that makes everyone sit up and pay attention, and now is no different.

Off to Wonshik’s right, Hongbin and Hakyeon’s heads snap up in unison.

“Everyone, I’d like to make a short announcement, if you will.” Seongkwon waits for everyone to rearrange themselves before continuing. “As you know, the occupation continues to get more and more oppressive every day. This is unacceptable. As the curators and creators of _The Independent_ , we have an opportunity to push back, to resist, in a capacity we weren’t before. From now on, articles and content will be now outright encouraging citizens to speak out against the oppression our country is facing. The time for reconnaissance is over. We, as a people, will not stand for the atrocities committed against our country every day, and it’s time everyone knew that.”

When he is finished, the room erupts in a thunderous roar of cheers and applause, but Wonshik’s heart is cold with dread. He meets the eyes of Hakyeon and Hongbin across the room; Hakyeon is looking just as apprehensive as he is, but Hongbin is bright-eyed and cheering with the rest of them. He waits for the roar to die down before getting up and making his way over to them, grabbing Hakyeon by the sleeve and pulling him aside. “What the hell was that about?” he whispers loudly, looking around the room at the mortals, who are chattering loudly amongst themselves. “It sounds like he’s poking the hornet’s nest.”

“He is,” Hakyeon says grimly, leaning against the wall and folding his arms. “I’ve got ears to the ground. There’s something big brewing.”

Wonshik does not like the sound of that. He’s seen hundreds of rebellions over the years; normally all’s well that ends well as long as they’re kept _peaceful_ , and with Seongkwon’s speech he’s not sure that’s the angle he’s going for. If things go belly-up, the whole country could be engulfed in riots overnight, and riots are bad news. He has a keen interest in staying alive, and the more he sees what is going on around him the more he wonders if coming back to the country was such a good idea after all. “What do you mean, something big?”

“Couldn’t tell you yet.” Hakyeon shakes his head, his lips pressed in a thin line, and Wonshik gets more worried. When _Hakyeon_ is serious, that means it’s bad. “Something to do with leaders of a bunch of different churches. All I can tell you is it’s not violent. Whatever they’re doing, they want it to be peaceful.”

“I don’t believe that. What he was saying, that was deliberately antagonistic!” Wonshik protests, aghast. The mortals in the basement are milling about, galvanised, and it’s somewhat frightening to see.

Hakyeon nods tersely. “I’ll keep an eye on things. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, so don’t worry too much. This is just a lot of posturing. He wants to take the newspaper in a different direction, is all.”

Wonshik leaves shortly after that, feeling deeply unsettled. He isn’t surprised that Hakyeon knows all of this; he is nosy at the best of times, and with his shapeshifting ability he has the freedom to go anywhere he likes, and he often takes advantage of that. It’s not a shock that he would be spying on what Seongkwon is up to. It _is_ a shock that the powers that be—whoever is involved in running the independence movement, he supposes—are considering taking things further. He’d thought they were making good progress with _The Independent_ ; he’s not sure what else they can do. But then, there’s a reason he isn’t in charge.

He feels itchy and jumpy all over, but he’s not hungry enough to justify feeding. Instead he makes his way to a little park nearish to his house; it’s where he goes sometimes to clear his head, when things get too much and he needs some fresh air. He folds himself down into the grass and sits there, going as immobile as a statue and trying to banish every thought that comes into his mind. It doesn’t work, of course. He didn’t really think it would.

He isn’t surprised when there’s a crashing in the bushes behind him, and then a cacophony of swears, and then Hongbin is collapsing dramatically to the ground next to him. He’s covered in a spider’s web, and Wonshik holds back his laughter as he tries to get it off. “Why’d you leave, hyung? I looked up, and you were gone.”

It’s hard for him to explain to Hongbin, so instead he asks what sounds like a stupid question. “Hongbin, do you ever get… prophetic visions? Or feelings about the future?”

It’s a hunch, and one he’s going off based on information he’d gleaned from Hakyeon about his slave, Jihoon. As far as he can tell, Jihoon actually predicted the circumstances surrounding Hakyeon’s turning years in advance; if Hongbin has that ability, now is the time for him to reveal it. But Hongbin just shakes his head, looking confused. “No, never. Wait. Should I?”

Interesting, then, that this gift seems to manifest in different ways. That’s a puzzle for Wonshik to put aside, because he’s certain it’s not one he can solve; unlike true immortals, he does not have access to the magic that animates him. He is merely a slave to it. “It doesn’t matter,” he sighs, flopping onto his back and staring up at the crescent moon. “I just have a… bad feeling about all of this.”

“Seongkwon doesn’t want us to go rioting in the streets, if that’s what you mean,” Hongbin assures him, but it sounds hollow to Wonshik’s skeptical ears. “It was just to get us riled up so we were motivated to write more. Instead of our articles being subtly rebellious, he now wants them to be openly rebellious. That’s all.”

So Hongbin doesn’t know what Seongkwon is planning, either. That’s mildly alarming. Wonshik knows that what Hongbin’s saying is making sense, but there’s something in his gut telling him not to believe it; tensions all across the country have been ramping up in the past few months, which makes him hesitant to trust that everything will be alright. His gut has kept him alive, so he wants to keep listening to it—but what he can he do? “How am I meant to write an openly rebellious linguistics column?” is all he says instead, which makes Hongbin laugh long and loud.

“If there’s a way to do it, you’ll do it,” Hongbin replies, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to haul Wonshik up too. “Now, wanna come round? I bought a new mahjong set the other day and I want to try it out.”

“Mahjong!” Wonshik splutters as he clambers ungracefully to his feet. “Are you eighty?” That earns him a punch in the shoulder (that he barely feels, but that leaves Hongbin’s hand smarting), and he shies away, laughing despite the heavy weight on his shoulders. “Okay, alright. Is Hakyeon playing too?”

“He’s already waiting for us,” Hongbin says, looking back over his shoulder and grinning.

 

 _2nd June 1442_  
As the alphabet draws closer to completion, the voices of dissent start to grow louder and louder.

It’s not like this is new; ever since the King announced his plan, there was outcry across the country—mainly from the upper crust of society who didn’t give a damn whether the poor could read or write or not. Wonshik and and Taehee—although yangban, part of said upper crust—just press their lips together or change the subject whenever their friends start complaining about the King. Taehee vents in private about how idiotic and hypocritical most of the women are, since _they_ can’t read or write either, but Wonshik keeps his mouth shut and his head down. It’s his job to help create the damned thing, anyway, so it’s a project that’s close to his heart. At the current estimates, he’ll be working on this for at least another year, although possibly closer to a year and a half with how things are going. He doesn’t mind. It gives him something to do.

He’s hurrying home from the jiphyeonjeon one beautiful sunny afternoon, revelling in the sun’s rays on his skin, when he hears a commotion not far from him. Part of him wants to ignore it and go home; he and Taehee are meant to be having afternoon tea before they go and see a gisaeng dance later in the evening. Another, larger part of him takes over, however, and he swerves to head towards the source of the noise, apprehensive of what he might find out.

What he was expecting, however, is not the scene that greets him: two hostile groups, screaming at each other just outside the palace gates. He stands there horrified for a moment before ducking into the shade of the gate to watch without being so conspicuous; the air is so thick with tension that it feels like it could explode into violence at any moment, and he looks around for the palace guards. There’s some standing between the two groups, holding them back, but it’s not enough.

On one side of the divide are people that Wonshik can instantly tell are working class—their hanbok is made of rough-spun cloth in practical, light colours, and the women’s hair is tucked neatly out of the way. Their faces are twisted in vitriol, directed at the other group, and Wonshik gets the shock of his life when he realises that, yelling obscenities to the working class, are his contemporaries; people like him wearing silk hanbok in bright colours, the women with extravagant hair and beautiful makeup, the men all wearing expensive hats and looking impeccably groomed. He’s so shocked he takes a visceral step back, because it’s not the done thing for the upper class to be yelling and screaming and carrying on like that little group is. That is until he hears what they’re shouting, and he feels sick to his stomach.

“You don’t deserve to be able to read!” One woman shrieks, and Wonshik turns and hurries away.

The image sticks in his head the whole walk back to his home, and when he gets in Taehee can tell he’s distracted because she just sits at the table and waits for him to talk as he paces about. When he finally sorts out his words, he looks at her and purses his lips. “Do you think women deserve to be able to read?”

“Chinese or Hunminjeongeum?” she replies evenly, using the word the King has coined to name their new alphabet.

“Either. Both.”

“Of course.” She shifts and pats the ground next to him, indicating for him to sit down. He does, his brow furrowed, and her lips twitch. “What happened?”

“I heard noises when I was coming home, and I went to investigate. Some commoners were there, protesting. Or counter-protesting, I suppose. The others were… like us.” He gestures to her, indicating her status evident from the beautiful hanbok she’s wearing today. “They were screaming at each other, horrible things. One of the women said the commoners didn’t deserve to be able to read.”

She laughs, and he relaxes a little. “Is that all? Gosh, I thought something really serious had happened. Well, if the King believes that the commoners deserve to read, then I trust in the King’s logic. As every loyal subject should.”

“How very diplomatic of you,” he replies, raising an eyebrow.

A slave comes in then with food, and they fall into silence as they eat. After a while, though, she lifts her head and shrugs. “The ruling class do not like change. They definitely don’t like change that will threaten their position, which this most certainly will. But the King is doing the right thing. The divide in our society is vast. Of course there will be kickbacks, and of course there will be rebellion, but logic will prevail. It always does.”

Wonshik stares at her for a long, long moment, his mouth open. “Would you have been this intelligent if you didn’t know how to read?” he asks, faintly, because sometimes Taehee comes off as so ditzy it’s easy to forget she really is nearly as smart as he is and is just very good at hiding it.

She looks up at him and pats his hand comfortingly. “No, which is why I owe you a great debt,” she says with a wink, and Wonshik looks down at his food and smiles.

 

 _13th February 1919_  
Wonshik has never felt more ill at ease in his own country before.

It’s not like he can put it down to anything in particular. There has been no incident to trigger this feeling, no discernible reason why; it’s just a pervasive feeling that is everywhere, choking him. Sometimes he thinks he may be going insane. Other times he feels the urge to flee is so strong he may die if he doesn’t leave. Other times still he wonders if he’s suddenly gained the ability to see into the future; that this dread that settles heavy in his stomach is warning him of something. It spikes whenever Hakyeon comes home from spying on Seongkwon looking stressed; it spikes when Hongbin starts getting more and more antsy as the police start cracking down more and more on any use of the Korean language; it spikes when the articles in their paper start becoming inflammatory, openly so. He hates being in the dark, and right now he feels blind. Perhaps that’s why he wants to throw up as he makes his way to the church one night, summoned by Seongkwon for a reason unknown.

He feeds on the way, figuring it will help; it doesn’t. He doesn’t know what else to do. He feels so utterly helpless and somewhat dejected as he climbs the stairs and slips inside the church, looking right at the statue of the angel like it can help him. It can’t and won’t, and there’s no use summoning one. He is completely on his own.

He finds his way to Seongkwon’s office and knocks on the door softly before pushing it open. He’d heard the heartbeats from outside, but when he’s confronted with the reality of the situation in front of him his heart drops into his stomach. Seongkwon is there, sitting at his desk. Behind him is Hongbin, dressed in a suit and tie with his hair done neatly—and all around them are men of varying ages, each with the same quiet authority that Seongkwon has. Other pastors, Wonshik would assume, and he realises he’s just walked into a meeting of the leaders of the independence movement.

“Ah, Wonshik, welcome,” Seongkwon says warmly, and stands up to gesture at him to come in. He steps into the room, a little unnerved, and thanks God he had the foresight to feed. Being surrounded by so many heartbeats is distracting; there’s at least ten men crowded into the little room. “Wonshik is my linguistics consultant. He is fluent in six languages and competent in many more. I’ve never met someone who knows our language as well as he does.”

He flushes with the compliment. “You flatter me, sir,” he murmurs quietly, figuring it’s too formal a situation to address Seongkwon with ‘hyung’. “But I’m a little confused as to what I’m doing here.”

“Helping the movement, of course,” Seongkwon replies with a twinkle in his eye. “As you’ve been doing all along. But right now we need your talents for something more serious.” He looks around the room as if to get approval, and upon seeing nods from the other men, continues. “We are drafting a declaration of independence, and we would appreciate your help with it.”

At once Wonshik feels the gravity of the situation. This is nearly as arduous a task as creating Hangul in the first place; the weight of responsibility settles onto his shoulders once more, but this time he does not feel galvanised. He feels terrified. He can see Hongbin giving him an encouraging smile from the corner of his eye, but it doesn’t really work. “And what are you proposing to do with this document?” he asks, figuring he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.

“Read it out loud across the country at various pre-arranged locations, before forwarding on a copy to the Governor-General.” He seems to take in Wonshik’s apprehension and steeples his fingers together on his desk. “We do not want this to start riots. We want this to be peaceful in every way, and we want the document we create to reflect that,” he says gently.

Wonshik sighs. “It’s not the actions of our people I fear,” is all he says to that. “Where do I start?”

//

It takes three days.

In the end, he doesn’t even end up going home; he just asks Seongkwon if he can borrow some blankets and sleeps in a corner of the basement, figuring it’s light-tight anyway. If anyone notices him during the day, and notices that he sleeps like he is quite literally dead, they don’t say anything. The moment he wakes up he heads straight back up to Seongkwon’s office to continue working on the document with the others—most of the men have left and now only Hongbin, Seongkwon, and two others remain. At first he didn’t understand why it was he who was asked, but as time went on it becomes clear; with his expansive vocabulary and way of phrasing things, he is an asset to Seongkwon. With a document as sensitive as this, they can’t be too careful, and as time goes on Wonshik starts warming to the document (not the idea, of reading it out; just the document itself), choosing each word carefully after much debate with the others. It’s a slow process, and they go through five drafts—that all sound too antagonistic—before finally settling on one that fits, and then it just takes a little polishing. He’s constantly rearranging sentences, adding words, swapping them out, before Seongkwon has had enough and gently takes the paper from his hands.

“It is done then,” he says, and sits back in his seat heavily. Hongbin pats him on the arm comfortingly, but there’s little to take comfort from. Now that the document isn’t in front of him anymore it is becoming frighteningly clear, with every passing second, that he may have just damned them all and there is not a single thing he can do about it. He’s the most powerful being in the room—most powerful being in a ten-mile radius, probably—and yet he just has to sit back and watch what the mortals do next.

“Well done, hyung.” Hongbin beams at Wonshik happily.

Either he is too naive or too careless to consider the consequences of what they’ve just done, because as Wonshik shakes hands with Seongkwon and begins the journey home Hongbin sticks close to his side and chatters excitedly away. Wonshik just listens silently, not saying a word because he doesn’t know what to say. Hongbin is hopelessly optimistic, and actually believes that what they are doing can bring about change. Wonshik thinks—knows—that change doesn’t come because a group of pastors read out a document at a park. Change, on the scale that they’re hoping for, comes through spilled blood—and for once in his life, he thinks that this is blood that does not need to be spilled. He watched the shadow of war sweep across Europe and was helpless to stop it; it’s a similar feeling now, and he wonders if that is why he is feeling so wretched.

“Seongkwon asked me to read out a copy at the university,” Hongbin’s saying excitedly, hopping around like he’s drunk.

Wonshik makes himself smile, even though it’s entirely hollow, and slings an arm around Hongbin’s shoulders casually. “That’s great! When is it going to happen?”

“Don’t know yet,” Hongbin replies, sliding an arm around Wonshik’s waist and squeezing there to try and get him to jump. It doesn’t work, because Wonshik’s ticklishness has been worn down by Hakyeon over the course of centuries, so he just raises an eyebrow instead. “Soon, I think. They weren’t intending to do it so soon, but then the Emperor died…”

“Yeah,” Wonshik says, and he feels a little sad. “I never thought I would be upset to see the passing of a King, since I have seen so many over the years. But he was the last King of Joseon. Hakyeon and I… we are truly relics of the past, now.”

“And me!” Hongbin sings, and belatedly Wonshik realises Hongbin is right; he was born two years before Joseon ended. “Don’t be sad, hyung. It doesn’t suit you. This is Korea, now! We can do anything!”

Wonshik wonders if he was ever this naive when he was mortal, and he thinks he wasn’t. He probably came out of the womb skeptical of the way his mother looked at him. All the same it’s endearing, and when Hongbin slaps him on the shoulder and darts away, yelling, “Catch me if you can!” he follows, laughing.

It’s the most unfair competition on the planet, because Wonshik catches him in the blink of an eye—but then they’re off, sprinting through the streets, whooping and hollering like children without a care in the world. It’s freeing to go crazy and let loose, and although Wonshik feels this is slightly undignified he also feels better now that he’s not thinking of the future. At one point Hongbin leaps onto his back, and Wonshik takes the opportunity to leap onto the nearest rooftop with him clinging there, laughing as he shrieks. He does not take pity on him, and instead takes flight across the rooftops with Hongbin clinging to his back so hard he claws trenches in his flesh with his nails. When he finally stops, Hongbin’s breathless from laughing so hard, and Wonshik can hear his heartbeat racing hard and fast against his back—and realises he misses that, misses his humanity, for the first time in centuries.

 

 _28th February 1919_  
Wonshik is in the middle of reorganising his wardrobe (hardly a scintillating task, but one that’s necessary, since unlike Hakyeon he does not have the luxury of wearing whatever he wants whenever he wants) when the door bursts open, bringing a flurry of snow with it, and Hakyeon and Hongbin spill into the little house practically bursting with energy.

“What—” is all Wonshik manages to get up before Hongbin barrels into him, flinging his arms around him exuberantly and making a noise that’s a little close to a scream.

“It’s tomorrow!” he squeals, and Wonshik winces. He doesn’t have to ask _what_ is tomorrow. He’s been waiting for this since he handed the declaration over to Seongkwon. “We’re going to read it out tomorrow. Seongkwon’s getting everything organised as we speak!”

Even Hakyeon is beaming widely at this. “There’s a group of gisaeng in the north,” he starts, and Wonshik’s heart sinks. _Not you too_. “I want to go to the reading with them. As Songi, of course.”

They’re both looking at him for his approval, for him to say “that’s great, have fun, try not to get killed!” Except he can’t be glib about this, not when their lives are on the line, not when the tension in the country is so thick it chokes him and not when he is sure a war is about to begin. “I don’t think you should go,” he retaliates, watching the shock come over their faces as quick as anything. “Either of you, and especially not you, Hongbin. If things end up going badly, Hakyeon can shapeshift to get away. You can’t.”

They just gape at him for a moment, appalled that he would even suggest such a thing—and to be honest, he is surprised at himself; he had wanted to keep his thoughts quiet, considering they are traitorous towards everything they have worked together to achieve for the last year and a half—and not even knowing how to react. It’s Hongbin who splutters first, his face going red. “What? Hyung, how could you _say_ that? This is everything we’ve been—”

“Working towards, I know,” he interrupts, not caring he is being rude. “But I just don’t have a good feeling about this. The declaration itself is peaceful… but this is such a huge event. I don’t see how the protests can remain peaceful for long. We all know what the police are like.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this,” Hongbin says faintly, taking a step back. He doesn’t look red, anymore; he looks pale, ghost-like, and it hurts Wonshik’s heart to see. “I can’t believe _you_ are saying this. You’re the one who—you helped shape this country in the first place! How could you turn your back on it now?”

“Don’t you dare accuse me of being a coward,” Wonshik snarls, and when his fangs run out the atmosphere changes. Hakyeon takes a step closer, his arms out placatingly, but Wonshik ignores him. “I have been surviving for longer than you can even comprehend, and I fully intend to do it for a while longer. What’s coming tomorrow is _trouble,_ and either you’re too blind or too stupid to see it.”

He regrets those words the moment they slip out of his mouth, and knows he has gone too far now. “At least I _give_ a shit about this country,” Hongbin yells, taking a step closer. His face is twisted into rage, an emotion that doesn’t belong there, and Wonshik hates to see it. “At least I’m willing to put my life on the line for this country—if it even comes to that! Which it won’t!”

“You’re so _naive!_ ” Wonshik roars, letting his anger flow through him. He’s hunching over, and resists the urge to hiss at Hongbin. Hakyeon is keeping his distance now. “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t fucking protect you during the day, don’t you see? You’re so fragile. You break so easily. I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if you got hurt because of me.”

At that, Hongbin withdraws into himself. His face goes cold. He steps back and folds his arms over his chest, and he is nearly unrecognisable. Wonshik’s eyes are blurring with tears, and he hates himself for being so fucking weak, and he wishes he’d listened to Hakyeon. “For once, this is not about you.” Wonshik grits his teeth. He deserves that. “This is about something bigger than you, bigger than all of us. And I fully intend to be a part of it. You made that choice, back… before you became what you are. I’m making it now.”

He turns and leaves, slamming the door shut behind him, and Wonshik closes his eyes.

“I’m going too.” Hakyeon touches him on the arm briefly, gently, comfortingly. “I know you’re worried. I’m worried too. But he’s an adult and he can make his own decisions. He’s smart enough, he’ll be fine.”

“I hate feeling so fucking helpless,” he whispers, swaying on the spot. “There’s nothing I can do to help either of you if you get in trouble.”

Hakyeon takes a step closer and kisses him on the temple, and Wonshik nearly whimpers. “He survived twenty-two years without you. I think he can survive one day. We’ll be fine.”

A lie. Wonshik _knows_ it is a lie, although he doesn’t know how he knows, just that he does. Nothing will be fine, not in this country, not after tomorrow; things have reached boiling point, and whatever happens tomorrow will ring through history until the end of time. He wishes he’d stayed in Europe. He wishes he’d never met Hongbin, because then he wouldn’t be torn apart with worry. “Meet me at the church after sundown,” he says eventually, opening his eyes to look at Hakyeon. Hakyeon meets his gaze, although he looks a little sad when he cups Wonshik’s cheek. “If you’re both not there, find a way to get a message to me. If you’re arrested, I will come and find you. If you’re injured, I’ll heal you. Just don’t leave me in the dark? Please?”

He sounds pathetic and he knows it, but he really does not know what he would do without either of them. He has been with Hakyeon for so long that it is hard to imagine life without him, and although he has only known Hongbin for a fraction of that time he can’t imagine life without him either. He likes to call himself a lone wolf, but that’s a lie, has always been; ever since the beginning there has always been someone.

“Okay,” Hakyeon says after a beat, his thumb stroking along Wonshik’s cheekbone before he pulls away.

The door slams shut behind him, too, and Wonshik has never felt more alone in his life.

//

He doesn’t know what to do with himself without them; he abandons his wardrobe instantly and goes running across the rooftops, his feet slipping on the snow, the sounds of his footfalls thudding in his ears and sounding like a heartbeat. He runs because he doesn’t know what else to do, and knows that if he stays still the frustration will throttle him. He feeds, twice, doesn’t bother glamouring them and feels them struggle underneath his hands. He feels nothing.

He stays out as the sky turns from deep blue to light blue to pink on the dawn of March the first, sitting on the roof of his house, lost in his own thoughts. He only makes it inside just in time, but feels nothing as he collapses onto his bedding, face-down in his pillow. Sleep is claiming him, and he has no choice but to give in; did he ever have a choice in the first place? In _any_ of this?

His last thought when he drifts off is not of Hongbin, or of Hakyeon. It’s of an entirely different time altogether, back when he had a heart that beat and lungs that breathed, when he sat underneath a tree with a girl and listened to her talk about adventures.


	8. eight

The moment his eyes snap open when the sun sets that day he knows something is wrong.

Ordinarily, at this time of night, his street is busy. The whole time he’s lived here he has enjoyed waking to the sounds of mortality all around him; for some reason, people like to congregate in his street and drink. He is used to the clinking of glasses, the soft burbles of laughter, the bouts of occasional shouting. Tonight, though, there is dead silence outside, and when he sticks his head out the door he finds that there is not a soul to be seen.

He doesn’t know what it means, but it makes him nervous, and as he starts towards the church he sees further evidence of… something. What that something is, he can’t tell; he has no idea what happened during the day. If there were protests, were they peaceful? Is everyone in jail, or are they still elsewhere, chanting about freedom? Never before has he wished to even have something _remotely_ in common with true immortals, but suddenly omnipresence seems a useful ability to have. He sticks to the shadows as he hurries towards the church, but the streets are mostly abandoned—he passes a few people here and there, wrapping their coats around them and keeping their eyes trained downward, and his heart sinks.

He picks up on the scent from a few blocks away, but it’s only when he gets closer that it properly registers in his brain and he starts running. Every cell in his body is screaming at him to turn and run the other way—the scent of ashes and smoke on the air is overpowering to him, and he has a natural fear of being burned—but he keeps going, wondering what on earth is on fire, to turn into the street that the church is on and stop dead.

What he should be looking at right now is the church, standing proud and grandiose above all the other little buildings in the street. What he should be seeing, right this second, is Hongbin and Hakyeon sitting on the steps waiting for him. But instead all he sees is a ruined heap of rubble and ashes, still smoking and glowing, and not a soul to be seen. The church is gone. The newspaper is gone. He wants to be sick; he wants to throw up his soul, wants to turn away and pretend he has never seen this—he is not religious, but the desecration of such a lovely place that was such a home for him makes him want to explode. He takes a step closer, and then another. His shoes are covered in ash. They must have known, he realises belatedly; they must have known they were there all that time, and taken this opportunity to pounce. What else have they destroyed? What _happened_ while he was asleep?

He is a few meters away from the threshold of the church—or what used to be the threshold—when he hears it and freezes, time seeming to slow entirely, his eyes widening.

A heartbeat. Meters in front of him, slightly to the right. It’s slow and it’s weak, but it’s—it’s there, and he surges with hope until he realises he knows that pattern of that heart, has listened to it for the past year and a half, has learned its sequence by rote.

He knows that heartbeat.

_He knows that heartbeat._

He’s heading towards it before he has even registered that his body is moving. The wreckage is perilous to cross, with slivers of burnt wood everywhere; he could easily get staked, but he does not care. His every sense is honed into the feeble heartbeat, into finding it. He starts digging through rubble, throwing concrete and beams over his shoulders, panting like a madman but unable to stop. A twisted piece of metal looms before him, and he stares at it blankly before recognising it. It’s a piece of one of the printing presses, twisted and unrecognisable. The basement. He pulls it out, cuts his hand on it, throws it away with a roar and there, lying underneath it, _broken_ underneath it—is Hongbin.

“No,” he breathes, dropping into the little pit he’s dug and cradling Hongbin’s head with his hand, whimpering as he moans. “No, no, no—”

Hongbin’s burnt so much that he is unrecognisable. All his hair is gone; his face has—it’s almost melted, and his hands are curled into claws, his eyes screwed shut. Wonshik doesn’t even know if he can open them. He doesn’t know how the fuck Hongbin is still alive. He doesn’t know what happened. All he knows is he’s holding one of his closest friends in his arms, watching him die, and he can’t do a damned thing about it.

“Wonshik!” He hears from behind him, Hakyeon’s voice, and he remembers.

He takes Hongbin’s arm and bites down savagely, not bothering to glamour him. There’s no time for that. It doesn’t matter if it hurts. Hongbin jerks and moans, and Wonshik hates himself with every swallow, but he doesn’t have a fucking choice. Hongbin tastes like ashes, but Wonshik can still sense the sunlight in his blood, that wonderful earthiness that makes him so special; he can’t think about anything except how Hongbin had looked that night, framed in moonlight in the water.

He drinks until there is nothing left to drink. He drinks until Hongbin starts gasping and convulsing, and then he drops his arm to tear into his own wrist, forcing it towards Hongbin’s mouth. He chokes, coughs, and his heart stops for a beat before resuming as Wonshik’s blood drips down his throat—and then he latches on and starts drinking, and Wonshik tips his head back to look at the clouds, hissing.

“Wonshik!”

Hakyeon’s voice is closer, now, and there’s a great cacophony of crashes as he comes upon their little scene and gasps in horror. He drops into the pit next to them, takes in the scene, reaches to touch Wonshik and reconsiders; when Wonshik turns to look at him, he has never seen him look that horrified. “Hongbin—”

“Will live,” he snarls through gritted teeth as Hongbin bites at his arm savagely, wanting more. When Wonshik looks down at him, he realises he is healing before their eyes—his skin turns from charred and red to pink to healthy, and his hair starts growing back. His eyes open, and when he looks up at them they’re glowing red.

“Hyung,” Hakyeon says, and Wonshik hates the tone he’s using, “have you thought this through?”

No. “Didn’t have to,” is all he says, swaying a little bit as Hongbin drags him closer.

When he rips his arm away, the glow in Hongbin’s eyes fades almost instantly and his skin starts to go pale. Folding his legs, Wonshik pulls him into his lap and starts stroking his hair (the way he catches Hakyeon doing sometimes when he thinks Wonshik isn’t watching). “You came back,” Hongbin says happily, attempting a smile that’s marred by the blood around his mouth. “I wish you could have been there. I kicked a policeman in the head.”

“Of course you did,” Wonshik says wryly—but before he can say anything more, Hongbin gasps, shudders, and his heart stops dead in his chest.

 

 _20th December 1443_  
The announcement comes just before midnight on a blustery and cold winter’s night.

Wonshik has been on edge all day, ever since he and his colleagues convened in the King’s meeting room for the last time. They’d sequestered themselves there to finish the project, had worked through the night and into the next day, until the King had dismissed them and said he would let them know. Wonshik had made his way back to the jiphyeonjeon aimlessly—he didn’t much feel like going home, not when he’s just turned over the one thing he’s been working towards for the past three years—to shut himself up in his room, turning his face from the sun to try and bury his nose in a book to distract himself.

It doesn’t work, of course, and he leaps a foot in the air when a slave announces his presence. Wonshik calls for him to enter, smoothing down his hanbok, and notices when the slave opens the door that he can see it’s night outside. Huh. Time had passed faster than he thought it would.

“From His Majesty,” the slave says, bowing low as he hands the scroll of paper to Wonshik with both hands.

Wonshik nearly tears the paper he’s so eager to get in and read what it says. If the King decides to reject the work, they’re all back to square one; if he gives his approval, it’s finally over. He doesn’t really know which possibility he’s looking forward to more.

_The project is complete._

That’s all the scroll says, written in their new alphabet, and Wonshik’s heart soars. He gets up from the floor and rushes to hug the slave, not caring that the slave is alarmed (to say the least) and more concerned with the fact that it’s over. For the first time in his life, he does not have a goal. He’s free to do whatever he likes, and that is so liberating he doesn’t even know what to do first.

In the end he rushes outside and summons a slave to bring him a horse. He knows how to ride—he has distinct memories of his father teaching him, slowly and patiently—although he doesn’t enjoy it, and when he’s seated on the horse’s back he remembers why. They are such flighty creatures, but he brings its head round and points it towards the road regardless. He hasn’t been home in months, and he’s rather looking forward to seeing Taehee; she comes and visits him, of course, but he can’t see her for more than a few minutes, and that’s the way it’s been for as long as he can remember now. She didn’t seem to mind that he threw himself, totally and completely, into this project, but he still wants to thank her, and it’s this that has him trotting outside the limits of the city towards the woods. Something she had said when he saw her last has sparked an idea; she had mentioned one of her lovers finding flowers in the snow when he went out to hunt, and figures that if he brings her some of those flowers it will be the first step to apologising.

He doesn’t go far into the woods, though, because he’s not stupid; there have been a few tiger sightings and numerous wolf attacks this year alone. He figures the horse will tell him if anything is near, but as he ties it to a tree it seems completely unconcerned and starts sniffing at the ground instead. A good sign.

Perhaps it’s absurd, to be kicking about in the snow in the middle of winter, his thick cloak wrapped around him. It is certainly out of character. But he doesn’t particularly care; he’s so overjoyed at the concept of his new-found freedom that he finds himself grinning childishly as he jumps into a drift of snow that comes up to his knees. It’s not _complete_ freedom, of course—they still have to publish the alphabet, and in order to do that they have to organise it into a legible structure that will be easy to read, and he knows that is no mean feat. But the lion’s share of the work is done. Maybe he and Taehee can even take a holiday to China; she wouldn’t be dressed as a boy, and they wouldn’t be galloping wildly across the plains, but it’s something.

He finds the flowers not far from the horse, a little bunch of pale blue ones. He picks them carefully, humming softly under his breath as he pictures her face when he gives them to her. He has seen her in pale blue many times—blue is her favourite colour, so she often plans her wardrobe around that—and knows they will compliment her skin colour nicely. He finds some purple ones nearby and picks those, too, smiling joyously to himself.

He’s so caught up in his emotions that he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t hear the horse snort with alarm, and he doesn’t hear the swish of footsteps in the snow. He doesn’t think anything is amiss until something very heavy lands on his back, knocking him to the ground so hard he’s winded. He opens his mouth to scream, but then there’s a terrible pain in his neck and he can’t do anything but gurgle. He struggles for purchase—a tiger, it must be, there’s nothing else that could be this big and heavy—but finds none in the snow, the flowers he’d found crushed to a pulp in his fist as he kicks helplessly.

 _A great irony, to die on this night of all nights,_ some droll part of his brain thinks as his strength starts to fade, his vision going grey at the edges.

The creature rolls him over onto his back, and Wonshik manages to shriek—it must be going for his intestines, it’s going to eat him alive—but that’s all he _can_ do, because with that shriek goes the last of his energy and he feels himself dying. He can’t even see the beast that has attacked him, although he can certainly imagine it, and that’s what he sees as he drifts off—stripes, huge teeth, terrifying yellow eyes.

Right as he starts to slip away, he feels something drop into his mouth, and his body coughs and gags automatically. This is an intrusion, but the beast puts a paw on his chest and holds him down, forcing that liquid into him, and then his eyes open and his heart starts again and it’s the sweetest taste in the world. When he reaches for the source of the liquid he finds it is not a furry paw but an arm, a _human_ arm, and the shock of that makes him jerk—but he keeps drinking, biting at the flesh, wanting more. He doesn’t have the gall to be horrified at himself. He just keeps drinking, some deep, instinctual part of him knowing that he has to live. He has to live for Taehee, he has to live for his project, and he has to live for _him_ ; he’s worked too fucking hard in life to die, so he drinks and drinks, feral and wild.

As the creature pulls its arm away, Wonshik sees him, a man with bright red eyes and long fangs, pale skin, a blood demon straight from his nightmares. He opens his mouth to scream, to cry out for help—even though there is no hope to be found, not here—but only gets as far as taking a breath before his heart gives out and the blackness takes him.

 

 _3rd March, 1919_  
They sit, and they wait.

Wonshik takes Hongbin’s body—his completely lifeless body, he’s _dead_ —in his arms and they flee, running through the night away from that horrible scene, running to god-knows-where. Wonshik only has vague memories of his turning, but he knows he needs to bury Hongbin, so thats what they do at the park near his house. He digs the grave with his hands, his lips twisted into a snarl the entire time, while Hakyeon stands over the body and keeps watch. Wonshik can hear the sounds of disquiet echoing through the streets—the protests are continuing, all through the night—but no one bothers them.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Hakyeon ask tearfully as Wonshik lays Hongbin in the grave on his side, straightening his legs gently, touching him on the face with affection.

Wonshik does not reply. He just crawls out of the grave and starts filling it in.

On the first night, Hakyeon tells him what had happened, or at least what had happened to him. He’d shifted into Songi and caught the train north with all the other gisaeng, and at 2pm—as was the signal—one of them had read out the declaration, loud and strong and proud. They’d all moved as a group through the streets, singing and chanting, and it had been peaceful until the police came. Things, after that, had gone about as well as Wonshik was expecting them to. Hakyeon had seen women being hauled away to jail by the hair, kicking and screaming; it kept escalating until people were being beaten in the street, at which point he’d shifted into a policeman and ran.

“What do you think happened to Hongbin?” Wonshik asks a while later. The faintest touches of dawn are starting to come to the sky, and he looks at them reproachfully.

Hakyeon shrugs and tugs at a blade of grass. “The student protests went about as well as mine, or so I heard. More casualties. More jailed. They were nice to us, apparently, because we were women.”

“Why was he in the basement?”

At that, Hakyeon shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Wonshik digs himself a grave next to Hongbin’s after that and falls into it, closing his eyes as Hakyeon throws the dirt back over him.

//

The rain comes as they’re crouching there in the dirt, Wonshik with his arm wrapped around Hakyeon, the sky opening with no fanfare and drenching them both. They shiver, but they do not move. They sit there, shivering and still, a hand bursts free from the dirt and Hongbin claws his way free, and Wonshik only has a second to appreciate the fact that it _worked_ before Hongbin is on him, his hands wrapped around his throat, a snarl ripping free from his mouth. His eyes are crimson, not brown, and he has fangs. Wonshik should feel glad. All he feels is grief.

“Get off him!” Hakyeon roars, wrapping his arms around Hongbin and pulling him back—but it’s futile, because Hongbin is either perfectly aware of his new strength and doesn’t care or is ignorant, and when he punches Hakyeon in the head he goes sailing meters away and hits a tree, crumpling to the ground.

Hongbin is hunched over, his hands curled into claws, and when Wonshik gets to his feet he hisses. He is more animal than man, and with the rain streaming down all around him he almost looks demonic. It would be frightening, but Wonshik is just terribly, horribly sad. What has he done? “Hongbin,” he murmurs, and Hongbin’s head snaps around to look at him. “Come back to yourself. Think of who you are.”

“What have you _done_ to me?” Hongbin growls, his voice low—but he uncurls his hands and straightens up, with difficulty. “Did you—”

“You are vampire,” Wonshik says, and he places a hand over his own heart. “Feel.”

Moving jerkily, like he’s not sure how his body is working, Hongbin copies the movement—and Wonshik sees him shudder as he realises he has no heartbeat, as he feels the deathly cold of his own skin. Over his shoulder, Wonshik sees Hakyeon climb to his feet slowly, and sags with relief.

“What now?” Hongbin asks, and he sounds small and terrified. His eyes are so wide in his pale face they look like saucers, and Wonshik bares his fangs at him, an order.

“We hunt.”

//

The first person they find is a policeman, running through the night with his truncheon out. He does not make it very far, because Wonshik drops from the roof of the nearest building and grabs him, forcing his arms down by his side and exposing his neck. Hongbin stares at him for a few seconds, appalled, but Wonshik can tell the man’s racing heart is calling to him. “Drink,” he commands, and Hongbin takes a step closer, hypnotised.

Wonshik sees it, the moment that first taste of blood hits Hongbin. The human in him shudders and gags, but he is vampire now, and the vampire takes over and grabs the human to drink deeper. Once more Wonshik files away snippets: the way Hongbin’s hand is so pale, tangled in the man’s black hair. The way his eyes look when he looks up at Wonshik, crimson and startling and empty. The way he chews brutally at the man’s neck with no finesse, no control. The way the tiger—Hakyeon, of course—comes out of nowhere and bites him on the leg, a signal to let go. The way the man’s body sounds when he hits the ground. None of this is new for Wonshik, but it feels it, and he still feels wretched.

They hunt for hours, because Hongbin is hungry and because Wonshik knows he needs this introduction to his new life. In the chaos of the night—the rain has not put out all the fires, and they come across more burnt and burning buildings as they go—the two vampires and the tiger go unnoticed, which is just how Wonshik likes it. By the time dawn is threatening, Wonshik and Hongbin are so full they’re nearly sloshing, and he can tell Hongbin is starting to get used to the capabilities of his new body.

They make it to the house with plenty of time to spare—the sky is getting light, but it’s not dangerously so—but the moment they cross the threshold Hongbin collapses, falling to the ground without a sound. Wonshik yelps and catches him, turning him over and checking for signs of the true death, but Hakyeon just snorts from behind him, and belatedly Wonshik realises he has shifted back to human.

“Don’t you remember what new vampires are like?” Hakyeon chides gently, patting Wonshik on the shoulder. “He can’t stay awake anywhere near dawn.”

Now that Hakyeon says so, Wonshik does remember, and he turns that thought over his head as he moves Hongbin to the bed and tucks him in. His first century was kind of a blur; without a maker, he hadn’t learnt how to control himself, and he’d left a pile of bodies in his wake until he learnt how to sip instead of gulp. Hongbin may have fed from dozens tonight, and he may have been savage about it, but he did not kill anyone. Wonshik made sure of that.

They crawl into bed together, sandwiching Hongbin’s lifeless body between them. Wonshik has watched him sleep a few times now, but this time his chest does not rise and fall, and he doesn’t stir when Hakyeon reaches out to push his hair out of his eyes. He is just as dead as Wonshik is during the day, and he should be feeling joyous that he saved his friend but all he feels is… despair.

“Do you think I did the right thing?” he whispers, flinging an arm across Hongbin’s chest to link his hand with Hakyeon’s. “Turning him?”

Hakyeon sighs. “I don’t know. Everything today has happened so fast. My head is still reeling. I can’t believe he’s… gone.”

Hongbin might not be _strictly_ gone, as they both know, but his mortal self is. Perhaps it’s this that is making Wonshik grieve; he has never killed a friend before, and he can’t get the image of Hongbin, spluttering and dying in his arms, out of his head. He might still be alive, in a sense, but things will never be the same. Wonshik will never hear his heartbeat again. He will never taste his blood again, taste that earthy queerness—if it’s still even there, if the change has not ripped his ability from him. He will never feel Hongbin’s warmth against his skin. Hongbin will never look at him the same way. They are tied together permanently, now, in a way that Wonshik’s not sure he’s ever wanted.

He disentangles his hand from Hakyeon’s and rolls onto his side, fighting back tears as he lets go into sleep.

//

When Wonshik wakes, Hakyeon is puttering about the kitchen. The kettle is boiling, and he is humming softly to himself; when he sits up, the sight is so normal and homely that when Hakyeon turns to smile at him he smiles back sleepily.

That is, until, Hongbin stirs from behind him and Wonshik turns to look at him and _remembers_.

“Hyung?” Hongbin bleats, reaching for Wonshik, his hand closing on Wonshik’s arm. Unlike last night, this touch is not threatening; with a start Wonshik realises he can feel Hongbin’s emotions, every single one of them, and he is choked with panic. “What happened?”

He lies back down and pulls Hongbin close, feeling shivers tear him apart. “What do you remember?”

“The march… The students...” he says, lisping around his new fangs. “It turned violent, like you said it would. I managed to get away, but the others…” He cuts himself off and buries his head in Wonshik’s shirt, shuddering. At this, Hakyeon slips over to join them, laying a hand on Hongbin’s shoulder to try to comfort him. “I ran to the church, figuring I would be safe in the basement. I got there in time, and I thought no one saw me, but then as we sat there we heard… noises. Voices. And then it was on fire.”

Wonshik closes his eyes. He doesn’t really want to hear this.

“I think they knew we were in there, or they didn’t care. Either way they’d… barred the door from the outside. We were trapped. I didn’t even see what happened to the others. I turned and then there was a… wall of fire. I was backed up against one of the machines. It was all… noise and smoke and fire and heat. And then you came.” He sits up and looks at Wonshik, his eyes brimming with tears. “What did you do to me?”

“I couldn’t let you die,” Wonshik replies, trying to sound calm and utterly failing. “You were—you were very badly burnt. Your lungs were burnt, your whole face was… I brought you over. We carried you to the park near here and you laid for two days under the ground, when you rose again as vampire…” he trails off. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t have a choice.”

“Is there ever a choice, with this life?” Hongbin muses, and Wonshik and Hakyeon look at each other, startled. That sounds like something he would say normally. Perhaps there’s hope after all.

 

 _23rd December 1443_  
Wonshik’s eyes snap open, and he breathes, and he chokes.

He’s in the _dirt_ , and he doesn’t even have time to figure out how he got there. All he can feel is a blind, all-consuming panic, and desperately he claws his way upwards, knowing somehow that this is the way out. His hand breaks free into the air, and he gasps helplessly as he climbs out, lying on the ground with a hand flung over his back as he pants. His heart is racing, and—

His heart is not racing.

He’s on his feet before he even remembers ordering his body to move, and his gums are throbbing; when he bares his teeth, seeking respite from the pain, his teeth _move_ and—oh, god, his top canines are impossibly sharp and long, and as if to be sure he pokes them with a finger. He pricks himself on them, but before he can even wince the wound has closed up, leaving nothing but a smear of blood on his skin. He sinks to his knees (actually one moment he is on his feet and the next he is on his knees), shuddering and convulsing as he tries to make sense of all the—of all the _everything_. He can hear the crunch of leaves behind him as something moves through the underbrush, and he turns, expecting a deer or a hog—but there’s nothing, although he catches scent of something animalistic on the wind. With the wind comes the noise, too, and in horror he realises he can hear a heartbeat.

He’s up and running before he can even think, running back towards the city, towards the palace. He is so utterly confused by all the sensations buffeting him that all he wants is to get home. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, and he doesn’t particularly care; perhaps he’s horribly sick. Perhaps he hallucinated being attacked by a demon. Perhaps his whole fucking life is a dream, because he’s running faster than he has ever seen any animal move, and he hiccups with a sob.

In his desperation to get home, he does not go via the palace gates. Instead he jumps clean over the wall, not even stopping to consider that he has just cleared a ten foot wall in one jump, and sprints towards home.

He knows, somehow, that it is two am exactly, and when he staggers into the house he heads for her room, tracking dirt all down the hall, feeling like he is about to fall over. Taehee will know what to do. Taehee _always_ knows what to do, has always known, because she is infinitely smarter than him—but she screams when he stumbles into her room and falls into her arms. “Wonshik! Oh my god!” she’s screeching in his ear, so loud it hurts, and then her hands are all over him, feeling to make sure he’s alright. “What happened? Why are you covered in dirt? Where did you go? I was so worried, you just disappeared…”

But Wonshik isn’t listening to her anymore, because when he’s pressed up against her like this he realises he can hear her heartbeat, thudding in his ears. Oh. It sounds sweet, the _thump-thump_ making him tremble, making his gums ache. There’s a weird tightness behind his chest, a burning sensation in his mouth, and instinctually he knows what to do to quell all the pain so he leans forward and bites her on the neck.

Her blood flows into his mouth, hot and sweet, and when she goes to scream he wraps a hand across her mouth and pushes her down. He has never felt anything like this before, and vaguely he realises he must be going mad. This is how he dies. He’s rabid, surely. Normal people don’t bite their wives and drink their blood—but normal people have heartbeats, and normal people can’t run faster than the wind, and normal people don’t think blood is the answer to everything they have ever wanted in life. As he drinks and drinks, biting at her neck to get _more_ , her struggles get weaker and weaker and he doesn’t even care. His world narrows down to the way her blood feels and tastes, hot and heavy and salty on his tongue, and how with every swallow the pain in his chest fades and he comes back to himself a little more.

Pulling away is the hardest thing he’s ever done, and he nearly doesn’t manage it. But she whimpers his name in horror, and when he jerks back and looks at her his head clears and it clicks.

Oh, god.

“Taehee—” he starts, reaching for her, but she’s terrified.

She can’t scream, because he still has a hand across her mouth, but she starts hitting him on the head desperately in an effort to get away. The wound on her neck is leaking blood all over the bed, all over her clothes, and Wonshik tears his eyes away from it; the more he looks at it, the more he wants to drink again, and he somehow knows if he does that he will kill her. “Taehee, listen, please,” he says desperately, because she _has to understand_. He doesn’t know what he would do without her. He’s never even considered it, and even now he’s—god, he doesn’t even know what he is, only that he’s changed and carries with him the memories of pain in his neck. “I don’t know what happened to me, I was—”

She bites his hand and rips away from him, stumbling and tripping in the bedding as she crawls towards the door. But to him she is moving in slow motion, so when he closes a hand over her ankle and drags her back towards him he realises, faintly, that this is too easy. It shouldn’t be too easy. He has never laid a hand on her like this before. “Taehee!” he cries over the sound of her screams. The slaves will find them in a moment. “Taehee, please just listen to me!” She claws at his face, delirious in her terror, and his patience snaps. “Taehee!”

At this, she listens. Her body goes slack, all the fight gone, and when they lock eyes he realises hers are glowing red, just like the demon’s was. He nearly drops her and crawls away, but instead sits back slowly, waiting for her to run again. She just lies there silently. It’s almost like she’s awaiting orders.

“Sit up,” he says, and she does.

A chill runs down his spine.

A few things occur to him instantly as she sits there, staring blankly at him, blood still leaking from her neck. The wound is—it’s horrible. It looks like a wolf bite, and he just stares at it for a moment, swaying as he realises he can’t stay here. Whatever he is, whatever he has become—and he still has no idea what that is—he clearly doesn’t have control over himself. He can’t put her at risk. He can’t put _anyone_ at risk, which means he needs to leave and go somewhere where he can’t hurt anyone. Preferably the forest, where there is not a soul in sight.

Once this occurs to him he starts crying, quietly and openly. Taehee doesn’t react; she’s still under whatever spell he has casted on her, dumb and blind. He doesn’t want to leave her, but he doesn’t want to hurt her. If he stays, he will hurt her. If he leaves, he will hurt himself. He’s never loved her, but he still swears his heart is breaking, and wishes he could rail at the injustice of it all.

“Taehee, sweetheart, come here,” he breathes, and she does, crawling into his arms robotically. “If I tell you to remember something, will you remember it?” She nods, and he bites back a sob. “Okay… You went into my room, because you missed me so much and I hadn’t come home. You find a note on my pillow. A suicide note.” His voice is thick with tears, now, but he doesn’t falter. It’s for the best. That is the logical conclusion. “It said I had nothing to live for, but I loved you very much, and that I had wandered off into the woods to meet my natural end. You followed me, and got attacked by wolves, but managed to get away. You never saw me here.”

“I never saw you here,” she says in a monotone, her eyes glassy and unseeing. “I followed you into the woods and got attacked by wolves but managed to get away.”

He’s sobbing so hard now he can’t really see, and when he goes to wipe his face realises, with faint horror, that he is crying tears of blood. “Good, my love,” he chokes out around the sobs, and kisses her on the forehead. “Go. Stumble into the hall and act like you just got home. Go.”

He doesn’t watch her go because it hurts more than he could imagine—and he wants to remember her when she was happy and smiling, not mauled at the hands of her own husband. Instead he steals out the window and heads around to the other side of the house, slipping into his room and digging through his stuff to find a calligraphy pen and paper. He hears a scream from behind him—one of the slaves discovering Taehee, if he had to guess—and grits his teeth as he scrawls the suicide note, the letters he’d helped create feeling so familiar to write.

When he steals away from the house he’s crying harder than he has ever cried in his life. It still hasn’t sunk in that he is leaving, and leaving forever with nothing but the clothes on his back and some of his money he’d slipped into his pockets. It doesn’t feel real, even when he pokes at his fangs again, even when he clears the palace wall in one bound. He runs and runs, trying to tire himself out, trying to distract himself from the way she had looked, terror in her eyes and blood on her neck.

He vows never to return, and it cleaves his heart in two.

 

_**Epilogue** _

 

 _7th March, 1919_  
“Hongbin?” Hakyeon calls as he slips inside the house.

Hongbin startles out of whatever trance he was in—that’s just one of the multitude of things he’s noticing, with the change; he has the ability to withdraw and lose himself in his own head for hours on end—and goes to open the door. One moment, he is sitting on his bed. The next he’s standing in the doorway, the door having opened seemingly by itself—but no, that’s all him. Another thing he can’t adjust to. His mind is still getting used to the speed at which his body can move.

“Hey,” Hakyeon says, and peers up at him. “I’ve brought you something.”

Hongbin stands aside to let him in. He can sense what—or rather, who—has fed on, which he wasn’t able to do before. This time when he touches him on the arm as he walks past he can see the image of a girl, around his age, blinking up at Hakyeon through her eyelashes. He shudders.

He goes back to bed as Hakyeon bustles about the kitchen, opening cupboards until he finds what he was looking for before finally coming over to him and sitting on the bed next to him. “Here,” he murmurs, pressing a cup into Hongbin’s hand. “Drink.”

Hongbin doesn’t have to be told twice, not when he smells what’s in the cup—he doesn’t want to think where Hakyeon got blood, but he doesn’t care. He downs the contents in one go and licks his lips, wondering in a rather detached way how he could love the taste of something that once repulsed him. “Is there more?”

“Later.” Hakyeon waves his hand in the air before leaning forward, putting himself in Hongbin’s personal space very deliberately. With his new eyesight he can see every single one of Hakyeon’s pores. It disturbs him. “How are you doing?”

“How do you think?” Now that he knows he isn’t going to get any blood, he slams the cup down and lies back down, pulling the blankets over his head and curling into a ball.

He’s being petulant and juvenile and he knows it. He really should be acting more grown-up about this, considering Wonshik can’t even look him in the eye anymore and Hongbin can feel his guilt. But he revels in being childlike, when everything else human has been ripped from him. He isn’t angry with Wonshik for changing him; if the situations were reversed, he can’t say he wouldn’t do the same if he had the ability. He’s just not sure where to go from here, now that he’s dead.

No one had told him that becoming a vampire involved, you know, _dying_ , but he should have known better.

“You sound like you’re on top of the world,” Hakyeon murmurs, and then he’s cuddling into Hongbin from behind.

That makes him snort, which Hakyeon only takes as encouragement—and when he digs his fingers into Hongbin’s waist he jumps and rolls over to get revenge. They tussle in the blankets, slapping at each other playfully, and it’s the most fun Hongbin’s had since he died right up until his hand lands on Hakyeon’s neck. His pulse is there, thudding languidly, and his fangs pop out without him having any control over it.

“It’s okay,” Hakyeon says, sitting up and catching Hongbin’s wrist. “It happens—”

But Hongbin bursts into tears, and Hakyeon looks slightly lost at that.

He thinks he could maybe cope with that, with crying—he doesn’t do it much ordinarily—right up until he goes to wipe his face and his hand comes back bloody. He stares at it, not quite comprehending, until he sees Hakyeon’s face fall and the tears start flowing faster. “Oh, Hongbinnie,” Hakyeon murmurs, pulling him into a hug.

“I cry blood!” he wails. Out of all the things to be upset over, it’s the most unimportant, but it’s the one that’s here _right now_ and so when he sees he’s staining Hakyeon’s shirt he cries even harder. “How—how do I do this? How can I live when I… I do this?”

“You kill that mortal part of yourself,” Hakyeon whispers to him, and that shocks him so much he stops sobbing. “Because if you let it take you over, it will kill you first.”

That’s something he would expect Wonshik to say, not Hakyeon, and the surprise is etched on his face as he pulls back to look and see if Hakyeon is joking. He looks deadly serious. “Hongbin the immortal and Hongbin the mortal aren’t two separate people.” He wipes at his face again, but he’s just making a mess. “I can’t just… kill that part of myself.”

Hakyeon says nothing, just pulls a handkerchief from his sleeve and starts blotting at Hongbin’s face. His touches are tender, gentle, and it’s a small consolation that Hongbin has the both of them. Hakyeon had Wonshik, but Wonshik was alone, and he doesn’t even want to consider what that would have been like.

“Someday you’re gonna be happy,” Hakyeon says firmly, folding the handkerchief over and continuing to wipe his bloody tears away. “Someday you’ll look back at this time and it will be so faint you will barely remember it, ‘cause you’ll be happy and content and surrounded by people who love you. I promise you.”

His tone is full of such authority it’s hard not to believe him, but as Hongbin lets himself gets tucked back into bed he feels like it’s hard to believe that he isn’t going to be like this forever. After all, isn’t that the very definition of immortality? Static, unchanging?

“Sleep,” Hakyeon whispers with a ghost of a kiss to his temple, and Hongbin, for all his anguish, does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's only halfway through the year but I'm already giving myself the award for "most asshole author" for killing off Hongbin the way that I did. Sorry, binnie :c
> 
> If you reached this far, if you're reading this, holy shit well done? I really don't know how this got so long, and I know it's not gonna get a lot of readers as a consequence, but that's ok. If you're here and you're reading this right now, THANK YOU. It means a lot that you would go through all of that for me, considering this became somewhat of a passion project for me :')
> 
> I hope you enjoyed and I'm so sorry this took so long ♡


	9. glossary + notes

**Glossary  
**  
**[Chima](http://xn--910bs4kt81a.com/web/G/\(G-143\)C.jpg)** : the skirt part of the hanbok.  
**[Dongpagwan](http://cfile208.uf.daum.net/image/202A1E4D4F9AB3772A6A56)** : an indoor hat worn by scholars and noblemen.  
[Durumagi](http://cfile223.uf.daum.net/image/1508572F4C43E9031B058F): an overcoat worn by men (and women on special occasions) indoors.  
**[Hanbok](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/e5/ee/c9/e5eec96858d604fc679ca9a1e327d19b.jpg)** : the traditional dress of Korea; this term refers both to men's and women's clothing.  
**Hangul** : the Korean alphabet.  
**[Hongryongpo](https://i1.wp.com/ic.pics.livejournal.com/cecilialambiel/16115501/512600/512600_600.png)** : the King's red and gold embroidered overcoat.  
**Hunminjeongeum** : the historical name for Hangul.  
**Jiphyeonjeon** : the "Hall of Worthies", a research institute King Sejong created in the early stages of his reign.  
**[Jeogori](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OKPVW6vej5M/UcHU8IH-4bI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/jjVrz6JYTPY/s1600/jeogori.jpg)** : the bodice part of the hanbok. It was tied in the front with a ribbon in a certain knot.  
**[Manggeon](https://thetalkingcupboard.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/tvn-ec9db8ed9884ec9995ed9b84ec9d98-eb82a8ec9e90-e05-120502-hdtv-h264-720p-taple-avi_002335866.jpg)** : a headband for men who wore the sangtu style, made of horsehair  
**[Sangtu](http://koreafilm.ro/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/%EC%83%81%ED%88%AC%EB%A8%B8%EB%A6%AC.jpg)** : a hairstyle for men where the hair was gathered back into a topknot and worn with a manggeon, a hairband often made of horsehair. This hairstyle was generally for upper class men, who put their hair up like this after getting married as a sign of becoming an adult (before this they wore their hair in a braid), but lower-class men and slaves wore a less refined version.  
**[Sangtugwan](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/cecilialambiel/16115501/274609/274609_600.png)** : a hair ornament for the sangtu style, often described as a crown with a hairpin through it (similar to the hairpin the women wear).  
**Yangban** : the highest caste in society – mostly made up of civil servants and military officers. One could get yangban status by passing the civil service exams.

 

**Notes**

**_About the context  
_ ** I was initially really hesitant to write this fic, for obvious reasons—it deals with such a sensitive, raw part of history, and I wanted to be as respectful as possible in my depiction of the times. I tried to stay away from politics as much as I could (except where it was necessary for the plot), and I certainly hope I haven’t offended anyone by writing this. Yezi, my friend whom I mention alllllll the time, is Korean and I had a long discussion with her as to whether she thought it was appropriate for me to write this. She did, and she guided me throughout the process. Her help was invaluable, not only with the Joseon aspect but with the 1900s aspect, and she gave me her blessing to publish what I’d written. Fun fact: it was only until after I’d finished that she decided to inform me that one of her ancestors was part of the group of original 33 activists who read out the Declaration of Independence, which I thought was pretty cool.

A lot of this fic is based in reality. The university Wonshik and Hakyeon taught at, Ewha, started with an attached high school (there’s no record of a linguistics department in 1918, but _some_ liberties had to be taken). There were indeed independence groups that printed newspapers in church basements; Seongkwon’s little group is loosely based upon a group known as “The Reformists” whose newspaper, printed in Dongdaemun church, was initially called 혁신공보, “The Reformist Gazette”, later renamed 독립신문, “The Independent”. This movement was started just after March 1st, but again, liberties were taken. The March 1st movement (삼일 운동) is a very real and pertinent event in Korean history—it took twelve months for the last of the rebellions to be suppressed, and in that time approximately 7,000 people were killed, 16,000 were injured, and 46,000 people were arrested.

 

 **_About the names  
_ ** As I mentioned in chapter one, Hakyeon and Wonshik took Japanese names in order to be employed by the university. Below are Yezi’s little bios about each name in turn!

Lee Hongbin - Kinoshita Hiroshi 木下 弘  
The last name is similar to Lee (李) but 子 in Japanese is "ko", a character often used as an endearment/nickname for girls. So I've substituted it with the similar-shaped 下. Hiroshi is Bin (彬) from Hongbin's name.

Cha Hakyeon - Hanabusa Mitsuru 花房 允  
Hanabusa means "a flower blossom" in Japanese, which is "Songi" in Korean - Hakyeon's gisaeng name. Mitsuru (允), or Yoon in Korean, is the character that makes up Hakyeon's Yeon (沇).

Kim Wonshik - Kanamoto Tatsuru 金元 植  
The Chinese characters for "Kim Wonshik (金 元植)" were arranged differently so that they would sound more Japanese (because Wonshik would've hated to be called anything but Wonshik LOL).

As for Taehee's name, the naming system for women in Joseon is very long and complicated and unlike Yezi I don’t have the intellect to properly sum it up, but essentially women were recorded in historical records as “first daughter”, “second daughter”, etc. When they got married, their husband's genealogy recorded them like ㅇㅇ부인 박씨 where ㅇㅇ would be their title (which depended on what court rank their husband was) and 박씨 is like “of the Park family”. With how nerdy both Wonshik and Taehee are, it made sense that he would give her a name, and below is her explanation for Taehee’s name (which is really fucking cute): 

“So I haven’t chosen a last name for her yet, but i was looking at Ravi's Korean wiki page for inspiration, and apparently he said at some radio show that his parents had thought about naming him 태승 (Taeseung) instead of 원식 (Wonshik). And i thought that 태 HAS to be 太, which means "big, huge", and so i want him to give her the name 태희 太喜 which means "biggest happiness.”

Taehee’s full name is Han Taehee, 한태희, and the full Hanja for her name is 韓太喜.

Shout out to Jamie and Helen for giving me the names Ah Wen and Meng Tian, too! And Oli for supplying his own name LOL


End file.
